




* 



























MISTRESS AND MAID 


A f)ousd|iili) Story. 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 

"JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN,” “THE WOMAN’S KINGDOM,” 
“HANNAH,” “A BRAVE LADY," “THE OGILVIES,” 
“OLIVE,” “AGATHA’S HUSBAND,” &c. 

. TVItlA. 

M 



> » 
» a •> 


HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
NEW YORK AND LONDON, 





^My Mother and I 
Hannah 
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Mistress and Maid 


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The Head of the Fam- Young Mrs. Jardine 
ily His Little Mother, Etc. 

John Halifax, Gentle- Plain-Speaking 
man Miss Tommy 

Agatha’s Husband King Arthur 
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HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N Y. 


■■■X 


MISTRESS AND MAID 


CHAPTER I. 

She was a rather tall, awkward, and strongly-built girl 
of about fifteen. This was the first impression the “ maid” 
gave to her “ mistresses,” the Misses Leaf, when she enter- 
ed their kitchen accompanied by her mother, a widow and 
washerwoman, by name Mrs. Hand. I must confess, when 
they saw the damsel, the ladies felt a certain twinge of 
doubt as to whether they had not been rash in offering to 
take her; whether it would not have been wiser to have 
gone on in their old way — now, alas ! grown into a very 
old way, so as almost to make them forget they had ever 
had any other — and done without a servant still. 

Many consultations had the three sisters held before 
such a revolutionary extravagance was determined on. 
But Miss Leaf was beginning both to look and to feel “ not 
so young as she had been Miss Selina ditto ; though, 
being still under forty, she would not have acknowledged 
it for the world. And Miss Hilary, young, bright and ac- 
tive as she was, could by no possibility do every thing that 
was to be done in the little establishment ; be, for instance, 
in three places at once — in the school-room teaching little 
boys and girls, in the kitchen cooking dinner, and in the 
rooms up stairs busy at house-maid’s work. Besides, much 
of her time was spent in waiting upon “ poor Selina,” who 
frequently was, or fancied herself, too ill to take any part 
in either the school or house duties. 

Though, the thing being inevitable, she said little about 


0 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


it, Miss Leaf’s heart was often sore to see Hilary’s pretty 
hands smeared with blacking of grates, and roughened with 
scouring of floors. To herself this sort of thing had be- 
come natural — but Hilary ! 

All the time of Hilary’s childhood the youngest of the 
family had, of course, been spared all house-work ; and aft- 
erward her studies had left no time for it. For she was 
a clever girl, with a genuine love of knowledge ; Latin, 
Greek, and even the higher branches of arithmetic and 
mathematics, were not beyond her range; and this she 
found much more interesting than washing dishes or sweep- 
ing floors. True, she always did whatever domestic duty 
she was told to do ; but her bent was not in the household 
line. She had only lately learned to “ see dust,” to make 
a pudding, to iron a shirt ; and, moreover, to reflect, as she 
woke up to the knowledge of how these things should be 
done, and how necessary they were, what must have been 
her eldest sister’s lot during all these twenty years ! What 
pains, what weariness, what eternal toil must Johanna have 
silently endured in order to do all those things which till 
now had seemed to do themselves ! 

Therefore, after much cogitation as to the best and most 
prudent way to amend matters, and perceiving with her 
clear common-sense that, willing as she might be to work 
in the kitchen, her own time would be much more valua- 
bly spent in teaching their growing school, it was Hilary 
who, these Christmas holidays, first started the bold idea, 
“We must have a servant;” and therefore, it being neces- 
sary to begin with a very small servant on very low wages 
(£3 per annum w~as, I fear, the maximum), did they take 
this Elizabeth Hand. 

So, hanging behind her parent, an anxious-eyed and rath- 
er sad-voiced woman, did Elizabeth enter the kitchen of the 
Misses Leaf. 

The ladies were all there. Johanna arranging the table 
for their early tea ; Selina lying on the sofa trying to cut 
bread and butter; Hilary on her knees before the fire, 
making the bit of toast— her eldest sister’s one luxury. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


7 


This was the picture that her three mistresses presented 
to Elizabeth’s eyes ; which, though they seemed to notice 
nothing, must in reality have noticed every thing. 

“I’ve brought my daughter, ma’am, as you sent word 
you’d take on trial,” said Mrs. Hand, addressing herself to 
Selina, who, as the tallest, the best dressed, and the most 
imposing, was usually regarded by strangers as the head 
of the family. 

“ Oh, Johanna, my dear.” 

Miss Leaf came forward, rather uncertainly, for she was 
of a shy nature, and had been so long accustomed to do 
the servant’s work of the household that she felt quite 
awkward in the character of mistress. Instinctively she 
hid her poor hands, that would at once have betrayed her 
to the sharp eyes of the working-woman, and then, ashamed 
of her momentary false pride, laid them outside her apron 
and sat down. 

“ Will you take a chair, Mrs. Hand ? My sister told you, 
I believe, all our requirements. We only want a good, in- 
telligent girl. We are willing to teach her every thing.” 

“ Thank you, kindly ; and I be willing and glad for her 
to learn, ma’am,” replied the mother, her sharp and rather 
free tone subdued in spite of herself by the gentle voice of 
Miss Leaf. Of course, living in the same country town, 
she knew all about the three school-mistresses, and how till 
now they had kept no servant. “ It’s her first place, and 
her’ll be awk’ard at first, most like. Hold up your head, 
Lizabeth.” 

“ Is her name Elizabeth ?” 

“ Far too long and too fine,” observed Selina from the 
sofa. “ Call her Betty.” 

“ Any thing you please, miss ; but I call her Lizabeth. 
It wor my young missis’s name in my first place, and I 
never had a second.” 

“We will call her Elizabeth,” said Miss Leaf, with the 
gentle decision she could use on occasion. 

There was a little more discussion between the mother 
and the future mistress as to holidays, Sundays, and so on, 


8 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


during which time the new servant stood silent and im- 
passive in the door-way between the back kitchen and the 
kitchen, or, as it is called in those regions, the house-place. 

As before said, Elizabeth was by no means a personable 
girl, and her clothes did not set her off to advantage. Her 
cotton frock hung in straight lines down to her ankles, 
displaying her clumsily shod feet and woolen stockings ; 
above it was a pinafore — a regular child’s pinafore, of the 
cheap, strong, blue-speckled print which in those days was 
generally worn. A little shabby shawl, pinned at the 
throat, and pinned very carelessly and crookedly, with an 
old black bonnet much too small for her large head and 
her quantities of ill-kept hair, completed the costume. It 
did not impress favorably a lady who, being, or rather 
having been, very handsome herself, was as much alive to 
appearances as the second Miss Leaf. 

She made several rather depreciatory observations, and 
insisted strongly that the new servant should only be 
taken “ on trial,” with no obligation to keep her a day lon- 
ger than they wished. Her feeling on the matter commu- 
nicated itself to Johanna, who closed the negotiation with 
Mrs. Hand by saying, 

_ “ Well, let us hope your daughter will suit us. We will 
give her a fair chance, at all events.” 

“ Which is all I can ax for, Miss Leaf. Her bean’t much 
to look at, but her’s willin’ and sharp, and her’s never told 
me a lie in her life. Courtesy to thy missis, and say thee’lt 
do thy best, Lizabeth.” 

Pulled forward, Elizabeth did courtesy, but she never 
offered to speak. And Miss Leaf, feeling that for all par- 
ties the interview had better be shortened, rose from her 
chair. 

Mrs. Hand took the hint and departed, saying only 

Good-by, Elizabeth,” with a nod half encouraging, half 
admonitory, which Elizabeth silently returned. That was 
all the. parting between mother and daughter ; they nei- 
ther kissed nor shook hands, which undemonstrative fare 4 
well somewhat surprised Hilary. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


9 


Now Miss Hilary Leaf had all this while gone on toast* 
ing. Luckily for her bread, the fire was low and black : 
meantime, from behind her long drooping curls (which Jo- 
hanna would not let her “ turn up,” though she was twen- 
ty), she was making her observations on the new servant. 
It might be that, possessing more head than the one and 
more heart than the other, Hilary was gifted with deeper 
perception of character than either of her sisters, but cer- 
tainly her expression, as she watched Elizabeth, was rather 
amused and kindly than dissatisfied. 

“Now, girl, take off your bonnet,” said Selina, to whom 
Johanna had silently appealed in her perplexity as to the 
next proceeding with regard to the new member of the 
household. 

Elizabeth obeyed, and then stood, irresolute, awkward, 
and wretched to the last degree, at the farthest end of the 
house-place. 

“ Shall I show you where to hang up your things ?” said 
Hilary, speaking for the first time ; and at the new voice, 
so quick, cheerful, and pleasant, Elizabeth visibly started. 

Miss Hilary rose from her knees, crossed the kitchen, 
took from the girl’s unresisting hands the old black bon- 
net and shawl, and hung them up carefully on a nail be- 
hind the great eight-day clock. It was a simple action, 
done quite without intention, and accepted without ac- 
knowledgment, except one quick glance of that keen yet 
soft gray eye ; but years and years after Elizabeth remind- 
ed Hilary of it. 

And now Elizabeth stood forth in her own proper like- 
ness, unconcealed by bonnet or shawl, or maternal protec- 
tion. The pinafore scarcely covered her gaunt neck and 
long arms : that tremendous head of rough, dusky hair 
was evidently for the first time gathered into a comb. 
Thence elf-locks escaped in all directions, and were forever 
being pushed behind her ears, or rubbed (not smoothed ; 
there was nothing smooth about her) back from her fore- 
head, which, Hilary noticed, was low, broad, and full. The 
rest of her face, except the before-mentioned eyes, was abso* 


10 


MlSTKESS AND MAID. 


lutely and undeniably plain. Her figure, so far as tbe pin- 
afore exhibited it, was undeveloped and ungainly, the chest 
being contracted and the shoulders rounded, as if with car- 
rying children or other weights while still a growing girl. 
In fact, nature and circumstances had apparently united in 
dealing unkindly with Elizabeth Hand. 

Still here she was ; and what was to be done with her ? 

Having sent her with the small burden, which was ap- 
parently all her luggage, to the little room — formerly a 
box-closet — where she was to sleep, the Misses Leaf— or, as 
facetious neighbors called them, the Miss Leaves — took se- 
rious counsel together over their tea. 

Tea itself suggested the first difficulty. They were al- 
ways in the habit of taking that meal, and, indeed, every 
other, in the kitchen. It saved time, trouble, and fire, be- 
sides leaving the parlor always tidy for callers, chiefly pu- 
pils’ parents, and preventing these latter from discovering 
that the three orphan daughters of Henry Leaf, Esq., so- 
licitor, and sisters of Henry Leaf, Junior, Esq., also solicit- 
or, but whose sole mission in life seemed to have been to 
spend every thing, make every body miserable, marry, and 
die, that these three ladies did always wait upon them- 
selves at meal-times, and did sometimes breakfast without 
butter, and dine without meat. Now this system would 
not do any longer. 

“ Besides, there is no need for it,” said Hilary, cheerfully. 
“ I am sure we can well afford both to keep and to feed a 
servant, and to have a fire in the parlor every day. Why 
not take our meals there, and sit there regularly of even- 
ings ?” 

“We must,” added Selina, decidedly. “ For my part, I 
couldn’t eat, or sew, or do any thing with that great hulk- 
ing girl sitting staring opposite, or standing ; for how could 
we ask her to sit with us ? Already, what must she have 
thought of us — people who take tea in the kitchen ?” 

“ I do not think that matters,” said the eldest sister, 
gently, after a moment’s silence. “Every body in the 
town knows who and what we are, or might if they chose 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


11 


to inquire. We can not conceal our poverty if we tried; 
and I don’t think any body looks down upon us for it. 
Not even since we began to keep school, which you thought 
was such a terrible thing, Selina.” 

“ And it was. I have never reconciled myself to teach 
ing the baker’s two boys and the grocer’s little girl. You 
were wrong, Johanna; you ought to have drawn the line 
somewhere, and it ought to have excluded trades-people.” 

“ Beggars can not be choosers,” began Hilary. 

“ Beggars !” echoed Selina. 

“No, my dear, we never were that,” said Miss Leaf, in- 
terposing against one of the sudden storms that were often 
breaking out between these two. “You know well we 
have never begged nor borrowed from any body, and hard- 
ly ever been indebted to any body, except for the extra 
lessons that Mr. Lyon would insist upon giving to Ascott 
at home.” 

Here Johanna suddenly stopped, and Hilary, with a slight 
color rising in her face, said, 

“ I think, sisters, we are forgetting that the staircase is 
quite open, and though I am sure she has an honest look, 
and not that of a listener, still Elizabeth might hear. Shall 
I call her down stairs, and tell her to light a fire in the par- 
lor?” 

While she is doing it — and in spite of Selina’s forebod- 
ings to the contrary, the small maiden did it quickly and 
well, especially after a hint or two from Hilary — let me 
take the opportunity of making a little picture of this same 
Hilary. 

Little it should be, for she was a decidedly little woman ; 
small altogether, hands, feet, and figure being in satisfac- 
tory proportion. Her movements, like those of most little 
women, were light and quick rather than elegant; yet ev- 
ery thing she did was done with a neatness and delicacy 
which gave an involuntary sense of grace and harmony. 
She was, in brief, one of those people who are best de- 
scribed by the word “ harmonious ;” people who never set 
your teeth on edge, or rub you up the wrong way, as very 


12 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


excellent people occasionally do. Yet she was not over- 
meek or unpleasantly amiable; there was a liveliness and 
even briskness about her, as if the every-day wine of her 
life had a spice of Champagniness, not frothiness, but nat- 
ural effervescence of spirit, meant to “ cheer but not ine- 
briate” a household. 

And in her own household this gift was most displayed. 
No centre of a brilliant, admiring circle could be more 
charming, more witty, more irresistibly amusing than was 
Hilary sitting by the kitchen fireside, with the cat on her 
knee, between her two sisters, and the school-boy Ascott 
Leaf, their nephew — which four individuals, the cat being 
not the least important of them, constituted the family. 

In the family Hilary shone supreme. All recognized her 
as the light of the house, and so she had been ever since 
she was born, ever since her 

“ Dying mother mild, 

Said, with accents undefiled, 

‘ Child, be mother to this child. ’ ” 

It was said to Johanna Leaf — who was not Mrs. Leaf’s 
own child. But the good step-mother, who had once taken 
the little motherless girl to her bosom, and never since 
made the slightest difference between her and her own 
children, knew well whom she was trusting. 

From that solemn hour, in the middle of the night, when 
she lifted the hour-old baby out of its dead mother’s bed 
into her own, it became Johanna’s one object in life. 
Through a sickly infancy, for it was a child born amidst 
trouble, her sole hands washed, dressed, fed it : night and 
day it “ lay in her bosom, and was unto her as a daugh- 
ter.” 

She was then just thirty ; not too old to look forward to 
woman’s natural destiny, a husband and children of her 
own. But years slipped by, and she was Miss Leaf still. 
What matter ! Hilary was her daughter. 

Johanna’s pride in her knew no bounds. Not that she 
showed it much : indeed, she deemed it a sacred duty not 
to show it, but to make believe her “ child” was just like 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


13 


other children. But she was not. Nobody ever thought 
she was — even in externals. Fate gave her all those gifts 
which are sometimes sent to make up for the lack of world- 
ly prosperity. Her brown eyes were as soft as doves’ eyes, 
yet could dance with fun and mischief if they chose ; her 
hair, brown also, with a dark red shade in it, crisped itself 
in two wavy lines over her forehead, and then tumbled 
down in two glorious masses, which Johanna, ignorant, 
alas ! of art, called “very untidy,” and labored in vain to 
quell under combs, or to arrange in proper, regular curls. 
Her features — well, they too were good ; better than these 
unartistic people had any idea of — better even than Seli- 
na’s, who in her youth had been the belle of the town. But, 
whether artistically correct or not, Johanna, though she 
would on no account have acknowledged it, believed sol- 
emnly that there was not such a face in the world as little 
Hilary’s. 

Possibly a similar idea dawned on the apparently dull 
mind of Elizabeth Hand, for she watched her youngest mis- 
tress intently, from kitchen to parlor, and from parlor back 
to kitchen ; and once, when Miss Hilary stood giving infor- 
mation as to the proper abode of broom, bellows, etc., the 
little maid gazed at her with such admiring observation 
that the scuttle she carried was tilted, and the coals were 
strewn all over the kitchen floor. At which catastrophe 
Miss Leaf looked miserable, Miss Selina spoke crossly, and 
Ascott, who just then came into his tea, late as usual, burst 
into a shout of laughter. 

It was as much as Hilary could do to help laughing her- 
self, she being too near her nephew’s own age always to 
maintain a dignified, aunt-like attitude ; but nevertheless, 
when, having disposed of her sisters in the parlor, she 
coaxed Ascott into the school-room, and insisted upon his 
Latin being done — she helping him, Aunt Hilary scolded 
him well, and bound him over to keep the peace toward 
the new servant. 

“ But she is such a queer one. Exactly like a South-Sea 
Islander. When she stood with her grim, stolid, despair- 


14 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ing countenance, contemplating the coals — oh, Aunt Hi- 
lary, how killing she was !” 

And the regular, rollicking, irresistible boy-laugh broke 
out again. 

“ She will be great fun. Is she really to stay ?” 

“ I hope so,” said Hilary, trying to be grave. “ I hope 
never again to see Aunt Johanna cleaning the stairs, and 
getting up to light the kitchen fire of winter mornings, as 
she will do if we have not a servant to do it for her. Don’t 
you see, Ascott ?” 

“ Oh, I see,” answered the boy, carelessly. “ But don’t 
bother me, please. Domestic affairs are for women, not 
men.” Ascott was eighteen, and just about to pass out of 
his caterpillar state as a doctor’s apprentice-lad into the 
chrysalis condition of a medical student in London. “ But,” 
with sudden reflection, “ I hope she won’t be in my way. 
Don’t let her meddle with any of my books and things.” 

“No; you need not be afraid. I have put them all into 
your room. I myself cleared your rubbish out of the box- 
closet — ” 

“ The box-closet ! Now, really, I can’t stand — ” 

“ She is to sleep in the box-closet ; where else could she 
sleep ?” said Hilary, resolutely, though inwardly quaking a 
little ; for somehow the merry, handsome, rather exacting 
lad had acquired considerable influence in this household 
of women. “ You must put up with the loss of your ‘ den,’ 
Ascott: it would be a great shame if you did not, for the 
sake of Aunt Johanna and the rest of us.” 

“Urn!” grumbled the boy, who, though he was not a 
bad fellow at heart, had a boy’s dislike to “ putting up” 
with the slightest inconvenience. “Well, it won’t last 
long. I shall be off shortly. What a jolly life I’ll have in 
London, Aunt Hilary ! I’ll see Mr. Lyon there too.” 

“Yes,” said Aunt Hilary, briefly, returning to Dido and 
^Eneas; humble and easy Latin it y for a student of eighteen; 
but Ascott was not a brilliant boy, and, being apprenticed 
early, his education had been much neglected, till Mr. Lyon 
came as usher to the Stowbury Grammar-school, and hap* 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


15 


pening to meet and take an interest in him, taught him and 
his Aunt Hilary Latin, Greek, and mathematics together, 
of evenings. 

I shall make no mysteries here. Human nature is hu- 
man nature all the world over. A tale without love in it 
would be unnatural, unreal — in fact, a simple lie ; for there 
are no histories and no lives without love in them ; if there 
could be, Heaven pity and pardon them, for they would be 
mere abortions of humanity. 

Thank Heaven, we, most of us, do not philosophize : we 
only live. We like one another, we hardly know why; 
we love one another, we still less know why. If on the 
day she first saw — in church it was — Mr. Lyon’s grave, 
heavy-browed, somewhat severe face — for he was a Scots- 
man, and his sharp, strong Scotch features did look “ hard” 
beside the soft, rosy, well-conditioned Saxon youth of Stow- 
bury — if on that Sunday any one had told Hilary Leaf that 
the face of this stranger was to be the one face of her life, 
stamped upon brain, and heart, and soul with a vividness 
that no other impressions were strong enough to efface, 
and retained there with a tenacity that no vicissitudes of 
time, or place, or fortunes had power to alter, Hilary would 
— yes, I think she would — have quietly kept looking on. 
She would have accepted her lot, such as it was, with its 
shine and shade, its joy and its anguish : it came to her 
without her seeking, as most of the solemn things in life 
do ; and, whatever it brought with it, it could have come 
from no other source than that from which all high, and 
holy, and pure loves ever must come — the will and permis- 
sion of God. 

Mr. Lyon himself requires no long description. In his 
first visit he had told Miss Leaf all about himself that there 
was to be known ; that he was, as they were, a poor teach- 
er, who had altogether “ made himself,” as so many Scotch 
students do. His father, whom he scarcely remembered, 
had been a small Ayrshire farmer ; his mother was dead, 
and he had never had either brother or sister. 

Seeing how clever Miss Hilary was, and how much as a 


16 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


school-mistress she would need all the education she could 
get, he had offered to teach her along with her nephew ; 
and she and Johanna were only too thankful for the advan- 
tage. But during the teaching he had also taught her an- 
other thing, which neither had contemplated at the time — 
to respect him with her whole soul, and to love him with 
her whole heart. 

Over this simple fact let no more be now said. Hilary 
said nothing. She recognized it herself as soon as he was 
gone ; a plain, sad, solemn truth, which there was no de- 
ceiving herself did not exist, even had she wished its non- 
existence. Perhaps Johanna also found it out in her dar- 
ling’s extreme paleness and unusual quietness for a while ; 
but she, too, said nothing. Mr. Lyon wrote regularly to 
Ascott, and once or twice to her, Miss Leaf ; but, though 
every one knew that Hilary was his particular friend in the 
whole family, he did not write to Hilary. He had depart- 
ed rather suddenly, on account of some plan which, he 
said, affected his future very considerably, but which, 
though he was in the habit of telling them his affairs, he 
did not further explain. Still Johanna knew he was a 
good man, and, though no man could be quite good enough 
for her darling, she liked him, she trusted him. 

What Hilary felt none knew. But she was very girlish 
in some things ; and her life was all before her, full of infi- 
nite hope. By-and-by her color returned, and her merry 
voice and laugh were heard about the house just as usual. 

This being the position of affairs, it was not surprising 
that after Ascott’s last speech Hilary’s mind wandered 
from Dido and iEneas to vague listening, as the lad began 
talking of his grand future — the future of a medical stu- 
dent, all expenses being paid by his godfather, Mr. Ascott, 
the merchant, of Russell Square, once a shop-boy of Stow- 
bury. Nor was it unnatural that all Ascott’s anticipations 
of London resolved themselves, in his aunt’s eyes, into the 
one fact that he would “ see Mr. Lyon.” 

But in telling thus much about her mistresses, I have foi 
the time being lost sight of Elizabeth Hand. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


17 


Left to herself, the girl stood for a minute or two look- 
ing around her in a confused manner; then, rousing her fac- 
ulties, began mechanically to obey the order with which 
her mistress had quitted the kitchen, and to wash up the 
tea-things. She did it in a fashion that, if seen, would have 
made Miss Leaf thankful the ware was only the common 
set, and not the cherished china belonging to former days : 
still she did it, noisily it is true, but actively, as if her 
heart were in the work. Then she took a candle and peer- 
ed about her new domains. 

These were small enough, at least they would have seem- 
ed so to other eyes than Elizabeth’s ; for, until the school- 
room and box-closet above had been kindly added by the 
landlord, who would have done any thing to show his re- 
spect for the Misses Leaf, it had been merely a six-roomed 
cottage — parlor, kitchen, back kitchen, and three upper 
chambers. It was a very cozy house notwithstanding, and 
it seemed to Elizabeth’s eyes a perfect palace. 

For several minutes more she stood and contemplated 
her kitchen, with the fire shining on the round oaken stand 
in the centre, and the large wooden-bottomed chairs, and 
the loud-ticking clock, with its tall case, the inside of which, 
with its pendulum and weights, had been a perpetual mys- 
tery and delight, first to Hilary’s, and then to Ascott’s 
childhood. Then there was the sofa, large and ugly, but 
oh ! so comfortable, with its faded, flowered chintz, wash- 
ed and worn for certainly twenty years. And, over all, 
Elizabeth’s keen observation was attracted by a queer ma- 
chine apparently made of thin rope and bits of wood, which 
hung up to the hooks on the ceiling — an old-fashioned 
baby’s swing. Finally, her eye dwelt with content on the 
blue and red diamond-tiled floor, so easily swept and mop- 
ped, and (only Elizabeth did not think of that, for her hard 
childhood had been all work and no play) so beautiful to 
whip tops upon ! Hilary and Ascott, condoling together 
over the new servant, congratulated themselves that their 
delight in this occupation had somewhat faded, though it 
was really not so many years ago since one of the former’s 


18 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


pupils, coming suddenly out of the school-room, had caught 
her in the act of whipping a meditative top round this 
same kitchen floor. 

Meantime Elizabeth penetrated farther, investigating the 
back kitchen, with its various conveniences ; especially the 
pantry, every shelf of which was so neatly arranged and 
so beautifully clean. Apparently this neatness impressed 
the girl with a sense of novelty and curiosity ; and though 
she could hardly be said to meditate — her mind was not 
sufficiently awakened for that — still, as she stood at the 
kitchen fire, a slight thoughtfulness deepened the expres- 
sion of her face, and made it less dull and heavy than it 
had at first appeared. 

“ I wonder which on ’em does it all. They must work 
pretty hard, I reckon ; and two o’ them’s such little uns.” 

She stood a little while longer ; for sitting down appear- 
ed to be to Elizabeth as new a proceeding as thinking; 
then she went up stairs, still literally obeying orders, to 
shut windows and pull down blinds at nightfall. The bed- 
rooms were small, and insignificantly, nay, shabbily fur- 
nished; but the floors were spotless — ah! poor Johanna! 
— and the sheets, though patched and darned to the last 
extremity, were white and whole. Nothing was dirty, 
nothing untidy. There was no attempt at picturesque 
poverty — for, whatever novelists may say, poverty can not 
be picturesque; but all things were decent and in order. 
The house, poor as it was, gave the impression of belong- 
ing to “real ladies;” ladies who thought no manner of 
work beneath them, and who, whatever they had to do, 
took the pains to do it as well as possible. 

Mrs. Hand’s roughly brought-up daughter had never 
been in such a house before, and her examination of every 
new corner of it seemed quite a revelation. Her own little 
sleeping nook was fully as tidy and comfortable as the 
rest, which fact was not lost upon Elizabeth. That bright 
look of mingled softness and intelligence— the only thing 
which beautified her rugged face — came into the girl’s eyes 
as she “ turned down” the truckle-bed, and felt the warm 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


19 


blankets and sheets, new and rather coarse, but neatly 
sewed. 

“ Her’s made ’em hersel’, I reckon. La !” Which of 
her mistresses the “her” referred to remained unspecified; 
but Elizabeth, spurred to action by some new idea, went 
briskly back into the bedrooms, and looked about to see 
if there was any thing she could find to do. At last, with 
a sudden inspiration, she peered into a wash-stand, and 
found there an empty ewer. Taking it in one hand and 
the candle in the other, she ran down stairs. 

Fatal activity ! Hilary’s pet cat, startled from sleep on 
the kitchen hearth, at the same instant ran wildly up stairs ; 
there was a start — a stumble — and then down came the 
candle, the ewer, Elizabeth, and all. 

It was an awful crash. It brought every member of the 
family to see what was the matter. 

“ What has the girl broken ?” cried Selina. 

“Where has she hurt herself?” anxiously added Jo- 
hanna. 

Hilary said nothing, but ran for a light, and then picked 
up first the servant, then the candle, and then the frag- 
ments of crockery. 

“Why, it’s my ewer, my favorite ewer, and it’s all 
smashed to bits, and I never can match it. You careless, 
clumsy, good-for-nothing creature !” 

“ Please, Selina,” whispered her distressed elder sister. 

“Very well, Johanna. You are the mistress, I suppose ; 
why don’t you speak to your servant ?” 

Miss Leaf, in a humbled, alarmed way, first satisfied her- 
self that no bodily injury had been sustained by Elizabeth, 
and then asked her how this disaster had happened. For 
a serious disaster she felt it was. Not only was the pres- 
ent loss annoying, but a servant with a talent for crockery 
breaking would be a far too expensive luxury for them to 
think of retaining. And she had been listening in the sol- 
itude of the parlor to a long lecture from her always dis- 
satisfied younger sister on the great doubts Selina had 
about Elizabeth’s “ suiting.” 


20 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ Come, now,” seeing the girl hesitated, “ tell me the 
plain truth. How was it ?” 

“ It was the cat !” sobbed Elizabeth. 

“ What a barefaced falsehood !” exclaimed Selina. “You 
wicked girl, how could it possibly be the cat? Do you 
know you are telling a lie, and that lies are hateful, and 
that all liars go to — ” 

“Nonsense! hush!” interrupted Hilary, rather sharply; 
for Selina’s “ tongue,” the terror of her childhood, now 
merely annoyed her. Selina’s temper was a long under- 
stood household fact— they did not much mind it, knowing 
her bark was worse than her bite— but it was provoking 
that she should exhibit herself so soon before the new 
servant. 

The latter first looked up at the lady with simple sur- 
prise : then as, in spite of the other two, Miss Selina work- 
ed herself up into a downright passion, and unlimited 
abuse fell upon the victim’s devoted head, Elizabeth’s man- 
ner changed. After one dogged repetition of “ It was the 
cat !” not another word could be got out of her. She stood, 
her eyes fixed on the kitchen floor, her brows knitted, and 
her under lip pushed out — the very picture of sullenness. 
Young as she was, Elizabeth evidently had, like her unfor- 
tunate mistress, “ a temper of her own” — a spiritual de- 
formity that some people are born with, as others with 
hare-lip or club-foot ; only, unlike these, it may be conquer- 
ed, though the battle is long and sore, sometimes ending 
only with life. 

It had plainly never commenced with poor Elizabeth 
Hand. Her appearance, as she stood under the flood of 
sharp words poured out upon her, was absolutely repuls- 
ive. Even Miss Hilary turned away, and began to think 
it would have been easier to teach all day and do house- 
work half the night, than have the infliction of a servant — 
to say nothing of the disgrace of seeing Selina’s “ peculiar- 
ities” so exposed before a stranger. 

She knew of old that to stop the torrent was impractica- 
ble. The only chance was to let Selina expend her wrath 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


21 


and retire, and then to take some quiet opportunity of ex- 
plaining to Elizabeth that sharp language was only “ her 
■way,” and must be put up with. Humiliating as this was, 
and fatal to domestic authority that the first thing to be 
taught a new servant was to “ put up with” one of her 
mistresses, still there was no alternative. Hilary had al- 
ready foreboded and made up her mind to such a possibil- 
ity, but she had hoped it would not occur the very first 
evening. 

It did, however, and its climax was worse even than she 
anticipated. Whether, irritated by the intense sullenness 
of the girl, Selina’s temper was worse than usual, or wheth- 
er, as is always the case with people like her, something 
else had vexed her, and she vented it upon the first cause 
of annoyance that occurred, certain it is that her tongue 
went on unchecked till it failed from sheer exhaustion. 
And then, as she flung herself on the sofa — oh, sad mis- 
chance ! — she caught sight of her nephew standing at the 
school-room door, grinning with intense delight, and mak- 
ing faces at her behind her back. 

It was too much. The poor lady had no more words 
left to scold with ; but she rushed up to Ascott, and, big 
lad as he was, she soundly boxed his ears. 

On this terrible climax let the curtain fall. 


CHAPTER II. 

Common as were the small feuds between Ascott and his 
Aunt Selina, they seldom reached such a catastrophe as 
that described in my last chapter. Hilary had to fly to 
the rescue, and literally drag the furious lad back into the 
school-room ; while Johanna, pale and trembling, persuaded 
Selina to quit the field and go and lie down. This was not 
difficult ; for the instant she saw what she had done, how 
she had disgraced herself and insulted her nephew, Selina 
felt sorry. Her passion ended in a gush of “nervous” 
tears, under the influence of which she was led up stairs 


22 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


and put to bed, almost like a child— the usual termination 
of these pitiful outbreaks. 

For the time, nobody thought of Elizabeth. The hapless 
cause of all stood “ spectatress of the fray” beside her kitch- 
en fire. What she thought history saith not. Whether 
in her own rough home she was used to see brothers and 
sisters quarreling, and mothers boxing their children’s ears, 
can not be known ; whether she was or was not surprised 
to see the same proceedings among ladies and gentlemen, 
she never betrayed ; but certain it is that the little servant 
became uncommonly serious — yes, serious rather than 
sulky, for her “ black” looks vanished gradually — as soon 
as Miss Selina left the kitchen. 

On the reappearance of Miss Hilary it had quite gone. 
But Hilary took no notice of her; she was in search of Jo- 
hanna, who, shaking and cold with agitation, came slowly 
down stairs. 

“ Is she gone to bed ?” 

“ Yes, my dear. It was the best thing for her ; she is 
not at all well to-day.” 

Hilary’s lip curled a little, but she replied not a word. 
She had not the patience with Selina that Johanna had. 
She drew her elder sister into the little parlor, placed her 
in the arm-chair, shut the door, came and sat beside her, 
and took her hand. 

Johanna pressed it, shed a quiet tear or two, and wiped 
them away. Then the two sisters remained silent, with 
hearts sad and sore. 

Every family has its skeleton in the house ; this was 
theirs. Whether they acknowledged it or not, they knew 
quite well that every discomfort they had, every slight jar 
which disturbed the current of household peace, somehow 
or other originated in “poor Selina.” They often called 
her “ poor” with a sort of pity — not unneeded, Heaven 
knows ! for if the unhappy are to be pitied, ten times more 
so are those who make others miserable. 

This was Selina’s case, and had been all her life. And, 
sometimes, she herself knew it. Sometimes, after an es- 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


23 


pecially bad outbreak, her compunction and remorse would 
be almost as terrible as her passion, forcing her sisters to 
make every excuse for her ; she “ did not mean it it was 
only “ ill health,” or “ nerves,” or her “ unfortunate way of 
taking things.” 

But they knew in their hearts that not all their poverty 
and the toils it entailed, not all the hardships and humilia- 
tions of their changed estate, were half so bitter to bear as 
this something — no moral crime, and yet in its results as 
fatal as crime — which they called Selina’s “way.” 

Ascott was the only one who did not attempt to mince 
matters. When a little boy he had openly declared he 
hated Aunt Selina ; when he grew up he as openly defied 
her ; and it was a most difficult matter to keep even de- 
cent peace between them. Hilary’s wrath had never gone 
farther than wishing Selina was married, that appearing 
the easiest way to get rid of her. Latterly she had ceased 
this earnest aspiration, it might be because, learning to 
think more seriously of marriage, she felt that a woman 
who is no blessing in her own household is never likely 
much to bless a husband’s ; and that, looking still farther 
forward, it was, on the whole, a mercy of Providence which 
made Selina not the mother of children. 

Yet her not marrying had been somewhat a surprise, 
for she had been attractive in her day, handsome and agree- 
able in society. But perhaps, for all that, the sharp eye 
of the opposite sex had discovered the cloven foot, since, 
though she had received various promising attentions, poor 
Selina had never had an offer ; nor, fortunately, had she 
ever been known to care for any body. She was one of 
those women who would have married as a matter of 
course, but who never would have been guilty of the weak- 
ness of falling in love. There seemed small probability of 
shipping her off*, to carry into a new household the rest- 
lessness, the fretfulness, the captious fault-finding with oth- 
ers, the readiness to take offense at what was done and 
said to herself, which made poor Selina Leaf the unac- 
knowledged grief and torment of her own. 


24 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


Her two sisters sat silent. What was the use of talk- 
ing ? It would be only going over and over again the old 
thing; trying to ease and shift a little the long-familiar 
burden, which they knew must be borne. Nearly every 
household has, near or remote, some such burden, which 
Heaven only can lift off or help to bear. And sometimes, 
looking round the world outside, these two congratulated 
themselves, in a half sort of way, that theirs was as light 
as it was ; that Selina was, after all, a well-meaning, well- 
principled woman, and, in spite of her little tempers, really 
fond of her family, as she truly was, at least as fond as a 
nature which has its centre in self can manage to be. 

Only when Hilary looked, as to-night, into her eldest 
sister’s pale face> where year by year the lines were deep- 
ening, and saw how every agitation such as the present 
shook her more and more — she who ought to have a quiet 
life and a cheerful home, after so many hard years — then 
Hilary, fierce in the resistance of her youth, felt as if what 
she could have borne for herself she could not bear for Jo- 
hanna, and, at the moment, sympathized with Ascott in 
actually “ hating” Aunt Selina. 

“Where is that boy? He ought to be spoken to,” Jo- 
hanna said, at length, rising wearily. 

“ I have spoken to him ; I gave him a good scolding. 
He is sorry, and promises never to be so rude again.” 

“ Oh no ; not till the next time,” replied Miss Leaf, hope- 
lessly. “ But, Hilary,” with a sudden consternation, “ what 
are we to do about Elizabeth ?” 

The younger sister had thought of that. She had turn- 
ed over in her mind all the pros and cons, the inevitable 
“ worries” that would result from the presence of an addi- 
tional member of the family, especially one from whom the 
family skeleton could not be hid — to whom it was already 
only too fatally revealed. 

But Hilary was a clear-headed girl, and she had the rare 
faculty of seeing things as they really were, undistorted by 
her own likings or dislikings — in fact, without reference to 
herself at all. She perceived plainly that Johanna ought 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


25 


not to do the house-work ; that Selina would not, and that 
she could not: ergo , they must keep a servant. Better 
perhaps, a small servant, over whom they could have the 
same influence as over a child, than one older and more in- 
dependent, who would irritate her mistresses at home and 
chattel of them abroad. Besides, they had promised Mrs. 
Hand to give her daughter a fair trial. For a month, then 
Elizabeth was bound to stay ; afterward, time would show. 
It was best not to meet troubles half way. 

This explained, in Hilary’s cheerful voice, seemed greatly 
to reassure and comfort her sister. 

“ Yes, love, you are right ; she must remain her month 
out, unless she does something very wrong. Do you think 
that really was a lie she told ?” 

“About the cat? I don’t quite know what to think. 
Let us call her, and put the question once more. Do you 
put it, Johanna. I don’t think she could look at you and 
tell you a story.” 

Other people, at sight of that sweet, grave face, its bloom 
faded, and hairs silvered long before their time, yet beauti- 
ful, with an almost childlike simplicity and childlike peace 
—most other people would have been of Hilary’s opinion. 

“Sit down; I’ll call her. Dear me, Johanna, we shall 
have to set up a bell as well as a servant, unless we had 
managed to combine the two.” 

But Hilary’s harmless little joke failed to make her sis- 
ter smile, and the entrance of the girl seemed to excite pos- 
itive apprehension. How was it possible to make excuse 
to a servant for her mistress’s shortcomings ? how scold 
for ill-doing this young girl, to whom, ere she had been a 
night in the house, so bad an example had been set? Jo- 
hanna half expected Elizabeth to take a leaf out of Selina’s 
book, and begin abusing herself and Hilary. 

No ; she stood very sheepish, very uncomfortable, but 
not in the least bold or sulky — on the whole, looking rath- 
er penitent and humble. 

Her mistress took courage. 

“ Elizabeth, I want you to tell me the truth about that 


26 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


unfortunate breakage. Don’t be afraid. I had rather you 
broke every thing in the house than have told me what 
was not true.” 

“ It was true ; it was the cat.” 

“ How could that be possible ? You were coming down 
stairs with the ewer in your hand.” 

“ He got under my feet, and throwed me down, and so I 
tumbled, and smashed the thing agin the floor.” 

The Misses Leaf glanced at each other. This version of 
the momentous event was probable enough, and the girl’s 
eager, honest manner gave internal confirmatory evidence 
pretty strong. 

“I am sure she is telling the truth,” said Hilary. “And 
remember what her mother said about her word being al- 
ways reliable.” 

This reference was too much for Elizabeth. She burst 
out, not into actual crying, but into a smothered choke. 

“ If you donnot believe me, missus, I’d rather go home to 
mother.” 

“ I do believe you,” said Miss Leaf, kindly ; then waited 
till the pinafore, used as a pocket-handkerchief, had dried 
up grief and restored composure. 

“ I can quite well understand the accident now ; and I 
am sure, if you had put it as plainly at first, my sister 
would have understood it too. She was very much an- 
noyed, and no wonder. She will be equally glad to find 
she was mistaken.” 

Here Miss Leaf paused, somewhat puzzled how to ex- 
press what she felt it her duty to say, so as to be compre- 
hended by the servant, and yet not to let down the digni- 
ty of the family. Hilary came to her aid. 

Miss Selina is sometimes hasty ; but she means kindly 
always. You must take care not to vex her, Elizabeth ; 
and you must never answer her back again, however sharp- 
ly she speaks. It is not your business; you are only a 
child, and she is your mistress.” 

“ Is her ? I thought it was this ’un.” 

The subdued clouding of Elizabeth’s face, and her blunt 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


27 


pointing to Miss Leaf as “ this ’un,” were too much for Hi- 
lary’s gravity. She was obliged to retreat to the press, and 
begin an imaginary search for a book. 

“ Yes, I am the eldest, and I suppose you may consider 
me specially as your mistress,” said J ohanna, simply. “ Re- 
member always to come to me in any difficulty; and, 
above all, to tell me every thing outright, as soon as it 
happens. I can forgive you almost any fault if you are 
truthful and honest ; but there is one thing I never could 
forgive, and that is deception. Now go with Miss Hilary, 
and she will teach you how to make the porridge for sup- 
per.” 

Elizabeth obeyed silently : she had apparently a great 
gift for silence. And she was certainly both obedient and 
willing : not stupid, either, though a nervousness of tem- 
perament which Hilary was surprised to find in so big and 
coarse-looking a girl made her rather awkward at first. 
However, she succeeded in pouring out, and carrying into 
the parlor without accident, three platefuls of that excel- 
lent condiment which formed the frugal supper of the fam- 
ily, but which they ate, I grieve to say, in an orthodox 
Southern fashion, with sugar or treacle, until Mr. Lyon — • 
greatly horrified thereby — had instituted his national cus- 
tom of “ supping” porridge with milk. 

It may be a very unsentimental thing to confess, but 
Hilary, who, even at twenty, was rather practical than po- 
etical, never made the porridge without thinking of Robert 
Lyon, and the day when he first staid to supper and ate it, 
or, as he said, and was very much laughed at, ate “ them” 
with such infinite relish. Since then, whenever he came, 
he always asked for his porridge, saying it carried him 
back to his childish days. And Hilary, with that curious 
pleasure that women take in waiting upon any one unto 
whom the heart is ignorantly beginning to own the alle- 
giance, humble yet proud, of Miranda to Ferdinand : 

“ To be your fellow 

You may deny me ; but I’ll be your servant 
Whether you will or no.” 


28 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Hilary contrived always to make his supper herself. 

Those pleasant days were now over ; Mr. Lyon was gone. 
As she stood alone over the kitchen fire, she thought — as 
now and then she let herself think for a minute or two in 
her busy prosaic life — of that August night, standing at 
the front door, of his last u good-by,” and last hand-clasp, 
tight, warm, and firm; and somehow she, like Johanna, 
trusted in him. 

Not exactly in his love ; it seemed almost impossible 
that he should love Aer, at least till she grew much more 
worthy of him than now ; but in himself, that he would 
never be less himself, less thoroughly good and true than 
now. That, some time, he would be sure to come back 
again, and take up his old relations with them, brighten- 
ing their dull life with his cheerfulness ; infusing in their 
feminine household the new element of a clear, strong, en- 
ergetic, manly will, which sometimes made Johanna say 
that instead of twenty-five the young man might be forty ; 
and, above all, bringing into their poverty the silent sym- 
pathy of one who had fought his own battle with the 
world — a hard one, too, as his face sometimes showed — 
though he never said much about it. 

Of the results of this pleasant relation — whether she, 
being the only truly marriageable person in the house, 
Robert Lyon intended to marry her, or was expected to 
do so, or that society would think it a very odd thing if he 
did not do so — this unsophisticated Hilary never thought 
at all. If he had said to her that the present state of 
things was to go on forever; she to remain always Hilary 
Leaf, and he Robert Lyon, the faithful friend of the family, 
she would have smiled in his face and been perfectly satis- 
fied. 

True, she had never had any thing to drive away the 
smile from that innocent face ; no vague jealousies aroused ; 
no maddening rumors afloat in the small world that was 
his and theirs. Mr. Lyon was grave and sedate in all his 
ways ; he never paid the slightest attention to, or express- 
ed the slightest interest in, any woman whatsoever. 


MISTHESS and maid. 


29 


And so this hapless girl loved him — just himself; with- 
out the slightest reference to his “ connections,” for he had 
none ; or his “ prospects,” which, if he had any, she did not 
know of. Alas ! to practical and prudent people I can of- 
fer no excuse for her, except, perhaps, what Shakspeare 
gives in the creation of his poor Miranda. 

When the small servant re-entered the kitchen, Hilary, 
with a half sigh, shook off her dreams, called Ascott out 
of the school-room, and returned to the work-a-day world 
and the family supper. 

This being ended, seasoned with a few quiet words ad- 
ministered to Ascott, and which, on the whole, he took 
pretty well, it was nearly ten o’clock. 

“Far too late to have kept up such a child as Elizabeth; 
we must not do it again,” said Miss Leaf, taking down 
the large Bible with which she was accustomed to con- 
clude the day — Ascott’s early hours at school and their 
own house-work making it difficult of mornings. Very 
brief the reading was, sometimes not more than half a 
dozen verses, with no comment thereon ; she thought the 
Word of God might safely be left to expound itself. Be- 
ing a very humble-minded woman, she did not feel quali- 
fied to lead long devotional “ exercises,” and she disliked 
formal written prayers. So she merely read the Bible to 
her family, and said after it the Lord’s Prayer. 

But, constitutionally shy as Miss Leaf was, to do even 
this in presence of a stranger cost her some effort ; and it 
was only a sense of duty that made her say “ yes” to Hi- 
lary’s suggestion, u I suppose we ought to call in Eliza- 
beth?” 

Elizabeth came. 

“ Sit down,” said her mistress ; and she sat down, star- 
ing uneasily round about her, as if wondering what was 
going to befall her next. Very silent was the little par- 
lor; so small, that it was almost filled up by its large 
square piano, its six cane-bottomed chairs, and one easy- 
chair, in the which sat Miss Leaf, with the great Book in 
her lap. 


30 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ Can you read, Elizabeth ?” 

“ Yes, ma’am.” 

“ Hilary, give her a Bible.” 

And so Elizabeth followed, guided by her not too clean 
finger, the words, read in that soft, low voice, somewhere 
out of the New Testament; words simple enough for the 
comprehension of a child or a heathen. The “ South-Sea 
Islander,” as Ascott long persisted in calling her, then, do- 
ing as the family did, turned round to kneel down ; but in 
her confusion she knocked over a chair, causing Miss Leaf 
to wait a minute till reverent silence was restored. Eliza- 
beth knelt, with her eyes fixed on the wall : it was a green 
paper, patterned with bunches of nuts. How far she list- 
ened, or how much she understood, it was impossible to 
say ; but her manner was decent and decorous. 

“Forgive us our trespasses , as we forgive those that tres- 
pass against us” Unconsciously Miss Leaf’s gentle voice 
rested on these words, so needed in the daily life of every 
human being, and especially of every family. Was she the 
only one who thought of “poor Selina?” 

They all rose from their knees, and Hilary put the Bible 
away. The little servant “hung about,” apparently un- 
certain what was next to be done, or what was expected 
of her to do. Hilary touched her sister. 

“ Yes,” said Miss Leaf, recollecting herself, and assum- 
ing the due authority, “ it is quite time for all the family 
to be in bed. Take care of your candle, and mind and be 
up at six to-morrow morning.” 

This was addressed to the new maiden, who dropped a 
courtesy, and said, almost cheerfully, “ Yes, ma’am.” 

“Very well. Good-night, Elizabeth.” 

And, following Miss Leaf’s example, the other two, even 
Ascott, said civilly and kindly, “ Good-night, Elizabeth.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


31 


CHAPTER IIL 

The Christmas holidays ended, and Ascott left for Lon- 
don. It was the greatest household change the Misses 
Leaf had known for years, and they missed him sorely. 
Ascott was not exactly a lovable boy, and yet, after the 
fashion of womankind, his aunts were both fond and proud 
of him ; fond, in their childless old-maidenhood, of any sort 
of nephew, and proud, unconsciously, that the said nephew 
was a big fellow, who could look over all their heads, be- 
sides being handsome and pleasant-mannered, and, though 
not clever enough to set the Thames on fire, still sufficient- 
ly bright to make them hope that in his future the family 
star might again rise. 

There was something pathetic in these three women’s 
idealization of him — even Selina’s, who, though quarreling 
with him to his face, always praised him behind his back — 
that great, good-looking, lazy lad ; who, every body else 
saw clearly enough, thought more of his own noble self 
than of all his aunts put together. The only person he 
stood in awe of was Mr. Lyon, for whom he always pro- 
tested unbounded respect and admiration. How far Rob- 
ert Lyon liked Ascott even Hilary could never quite find 
out ; but he was always very kind to him. 

There was one person in the house who, strange to say, 
did not succumb to the all-dominating youth. From the 
very first there was a smouldering feud between him and 
Elizabeth. Whether she overheard, and slowly began to 
comprehend his mocking jibes about the “ South-Sea Isl- 
ander,” or whether her sullen and dogged spirit resisted 
the first attempts the lad made to “ put upon her” — as he 
did upon his aunts, in small daily tyrannies — was never 
found out ; but certainly Ascott, the general favorite, found 
little favor with the new servant. She never answered 


32 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


when he “ hollo’d” for her ; she resisted blacking his boots 
more than once a day; and she obstinately cleared the 
kitchen fireplace of his “messes,” as she ignominiously 
termed various pots and pans belonging to what he called 
his “ medical studies.” 

Although the war was passive rather than aggressive, 
and sometimes a source of private amusement to the aunts, 
still, on the whole, it was a relief when the exciting cause 
of it departed ; his new and most gentlemanly portman- 
teau being carried down stairs by Elizabeth herself, of her 
own accord, with an air of cheerful alacrity, foreign to her 
mien for some weeks past, and which, even in the midst of 
the dolorous parting, amused Hilary extremely. 

“ I think that girl is a character,” she said afterward to 
Johanna. “Anyhow she has curiously strong likes and 
dislikes.” 

“You may say that, my dear; for she brightens up 
whenever she looks at you.” 

“ Does she ? Oh, that must be because I have most to 
do with her. It is wonderful how friendly one gets over 
saucepans and brooms, and what reverence one inspires in 
the domestic mind when one really knows how to make a 
bed or a pudding.” 

“How I wish you had to do neither!” sighed Johanna, 
looking fondly at the bright face and light little figure that 
was flitting about, putting the school-room to rights before 
the pupils came in. 

“Nonsense — I don’t wish any such thing. Doing it 
makes me not a whit less charming and lovely.” She oft- 
en applied these adjectives to herself, with the most per- 
fect conviction that she was uttering a fiction patent to 
every body. “ I must be very juvenile also, for I’m certain 
the fellow-passenger at the station to-day took me for As- 
cott’s sweetheart. When we were saying good-by, an old 
gentlemen who sat next him was particularly sympathetic, 
and you should have seen how indignantly Ascott replied, 
‘ It’s only my aunt V ” 

Miss Leaf laughed, and the shadow vanished from her 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


33 


face, as Hilary had meant it should. She only said, caress- 
ing her, 

“Well, my pet, never mind. I hope you may have a 
real sweetheart some day.” 

“I’m in no hurry, thank you, Johanna.” 

But now was heard the knock after knock of the little 
boys and girls, and there began that monotonous daily 
round of school labor, rising from the simplicities of c, a, t, 
cat, and d, o, g, dog, to the sublime heights of Pinnock 
and Lennie, Telemaque and Latin Delectus. No loftier: 
Stowbury being well supplied with first-class schools, and 
having a vague impression that the Misses Leaf, born la- 
dies and not brought up as governesses, were not compe- 
tent educators except of very small children. 

Which was true enough until lately. So Miss Leaf kept 
contentedly to the c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog, of the little 
butchers and bakers, as Miss Selina, who taught only sew- 
ing, and came into the school-room but little during the 
day, scornfully termed them. The higher branches, such 
as they were, she left gradually to Hilary, who, of late, 
possibly out of sympathy with a friend of hers, had begun 
to show an actual gift for teaching school. 

It is a gift, all will allow, and chiefly those who have 
it not, among which was poor Johanna Leaf. The admir- 
ing envy with which she watched Hilary moving briskly 
about from class to class, with a word of praise to one and 
rebuke to another, keeping every one’s attention alive, 
spurring on the dull, controlling the unruly, and exercising 
over every member in this little world that influence, at 
once the strongest and most intangible and inexplicable — 
personal influence — was only equaled by the way in which, 
at pauses in the day’s work, when it grew dull and monot- 
onous, or when the stupidity of the children ruffled her 
own quiet temper beyond endurance, Hilary watched Jo- 
hanna. 

The time I am telling of is now long ago. The Stowbury 
children, who were then little boys and girls, are now fathers 
and mothers — doubtless a large proportion being decent 


34 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


tradesfolk in Stowbury still ; though, in this locomotive 
quarter, many must have drifted ofl* elsewhere — where, 
Heaven knows ! But not a few of them may still call to 
mind Miss Leaf, who first taught them their letters — sitting 
in her corner between the fire and the window, while the 
blind was drawn down to keep out, first the light from her 
own fading eyes, and, secondly, the distracting view T of green 
fields and trees from the youthful eyes by her side. They 
may remember still her dark plain dress and her white 
apron, on which the primers, torn and dirty, looked half 
ashamed to lie ; and, above all, her sweet face, and sweeter 
voice, never heard in any thing sharper than that grieved 
tone which signified their being “ naughty children.” They 
may recall her unwearied patience with the very dullest 
and most wayward of them ; her unfailing sympathy with 
every infantile pleasure and pain. And I think they will 
acknowledge that whether she taught them much or little 
— in this advancing age it might be thought little— Miss 
Leaf taught them one thing — to love her; which, as Ben 
Jonson said of the Countess of Pembroke, was in itself a 
“liberal education.” 

Hilary, too. Often, when Hilary’s younger and more 
restless spirit chafed against the monotony of her life ; 
when, instead of wasting her days in teaching small chil- 
dren, she would have liked to be learning, learning — every 
day growing wiser and cleverer, and stretching out into 
that busy, bright, active world of which Robert Lyon had 
told her — then the sight of J ohanna’s meek face bent over 
those dirty spelling-books would at once rebuke and com- 
fort her. She felt, after all, that she would not mind work- 
ing on forever, so long as Johanna still sat there. 

Nevertheless, that wfinter seemed to her very long, es- 
pecially after Ascott was gone. For Johanna, partly for 
money and partly for kindliness, had added to her day's 
work four evenings a week, when a half-educated mother 
of one of her little pupils came to be taught to write a de- 
cent hand, and to keep the accounts of her shop. Upon 
which Selina, highly indignant, had taken to spending hef 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


35 


evenings in the school-room, interrupting Hilary’s solitary 
studies there by many a lamentation over the peaceful days 
when they all sat in the kitchen together and kept no serv- 
ant. For Selina was one of those who never saw the bright 
side of any thing till it had gone by. 

“I’m sure I don’t know how we are to manage with 
Elizabeth. That greedy — ” 

“ And growing,” suggested Hilary. 

“ I say, that greedy girl eats as much as any two of us. 
And as for her clothes — her mother does not keep her even 
decent.” 

“ She would find it difficult upon three pounds a year.” 

“ Hilary, how dare you contradict me ! I am only stat- 
ing a plain fact.” 

“ And I another. But, indeed, I don’t want to talk, Se- 
lina.” 

“ You never do, except when you are wished to be si- 
lent, and then your tongue goes like any race-horse.” 

“ Does it ? Well, like Gilpin’s, 

“ ‘ It carries weight, it rides a race, 

Tis for a thousand pound !’ 

— and I only wish it were. Heigh-ho ! if I could but earn 
a thousand pounds !” 

Selina was too vexed to reply ; and for five quiet min- 
utes Hilary bent over her Homer, which Mr. Lyon had 
taken such pleasure in teaching her, because, he said, she 
learned it faster than any of his grammar-school boys. She 
had forgotten all domestic grievances in a vision of Thetis 
and the water-nymphs, and was repeating to herself, first 
in the sonorous Greek, and then in Pope’s small but sweet 
English, that catalogue of oceanic beauties ending with 
“Black Janira and Janassa fair, 

And Amatheia with her amber hair.” 

“ Black, did you say ? I’m sure she was as black as a 
chimney-sweep all to-day. And her pinafore — ” 

“ Her what ? Oh, Elizabeth, you mean — ” 

“ Her pinafore had three rents in it, which she never 
thinks of mending, though I gave her needles and thread 


36 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


myself a week ago. But she does not know how to use 
them any more than a baby.” 

“Possibly nobody ever taught her.” 

“Yes; she went for a year to the National School, she 
says, and learned both marking and sewing.” 

“ Perhaps she has never practiced them since. She could 
hardly have had time, with all the little Hands to look aft- 
er, as her mother says she did. All the better for us. It 
makes her wonderfully patient with our troublesome brats. 
It was only to-day, when that horrid little J acky Smith hurt 
himself so, that I saw Elizabeth take him into the kitchen, 
wash his face and hands, and cuddle him up and comfort 
him, quite motherly. Her forte is certainly children.” 

“ You always find something to say for her.” 

“ I should be ashamed if I could not find something to 
say for any body who is always abused.” 

Another pause — and then Selina returned to the charge. 

“ Have you ever observed, my dear, the extraordinary 
way she has of fastening, or, rather, not fastening her gown 
behind? She just hooks it together at the top and at the 
waist, while between there is a — ” 

“ Hiatus valde deflendus. Oh dear me ! what shall I do ? 
Selina, how can I help it if a girl of fifteen years old is not 
a paragon of perfection ? as of course we all are, if we only 
could find it out.” 

And Hilary, in despair, rose to carry her candle and 
books into the chilly but quiet bedroom, biting her lips 
the while lest she should be tempted to say something 
which Selina called “ impertinent,” which perhaps it was, 
from a younger sister to an elder. I do not set Hilary up 
as a perfect character. Through sorrow only do people go 
on to perfection ; and sorrow, in its true meaning, this cher- 
ished girl had never known. 

But that night, talking to Johanna before they went to 
sleep — they had always slept together since the time when 
the elder sister used to walk the room of nights with that 
puling, motherless infant in her arms — Hilary anxiously 
started the question of the little servant. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


37 


“ I am afraid I vexed Selina greatly about her to-night ; 
and yet what can one do? Selina is so very unjust — al- 
ways expecting impossibilities. She would like to have 
Elizabeth at once a first-rate cook, a finished house-maid, 
and an attentive lady’s-maid, and all without being taught l 
She gives her things to do, neither waiting to see if they 
are comprehended by her, nor showing her how to do them. 
Of course the girl stands gaping and staring, and does not 
do them, or does them so badly that she gets a thorough 
scolding.” 

“Is she very stupid, do you think?” asked Johanna, in 
unconscious appeal to her pet’s stronger judgment. 

“No, I don’t. Far from stupid; only very ignorant, 
and — you would hardly believe it — very nervous. Selina 
frightens her. She gets on extremely well with me.” 

“Any one would, my dear. That is,” added the con- 
scientious elder sister, still afraid of making the “ child” 
vain, “ any one whom you took pains with. But do you 
think we ever can make any thing out of Elizabeth? Her 
month ends to-morrow. Shall we let her go ?” 

“And perhaps get in her place a story-teller — a tale- 
bearer — even a thief. No, no ; let us 

“ ‘ Rather bear the ills we have, 

Than fly to others that we know not of 

and a thief would be worse than even a South-Sea Isl- 
ander.” 

“ Oh yes, my dear,” said Johanna, with a shiver. 

“ By-the-by, the first step in the civilization of the Poly- 
nesians was giving them clothes. And I have heard say 
that crime and rags often go together ; that a man uncon- 
sciously feels he owes something to himself and society in 
the way of virtue when he has a clean face and clean shirt, 
and a decent coat on. Suppose we try the experiment of 
dressing Elizabeth. How many old gowns have we ?” 

The number was few. Nothing in the Leaf family was 
ever cast off till its very last extremity of decay ; the tal- 
ent that 

“ Gars auld claes look amaist as gude ’s the new” 


38 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


being especially possessed by Hilary. She counted over 
her own wardrobe and Johanna’s, but found nothing that 
could be spared. 

« Yes, my love, there is one thing. You certainly shall 
never put on that old brown merino again, though you 
have laid it so carefully by, as if you meant it to come out 
as fresh as ever next winter. No, Hilary, you must have a 
new gown, and must give Elizabeth your brown merino.” 

Hilary laughed, and replied not. 

Now it might be a pathetic indication of a girl who had 
very few clothes, but Hilary had a superstitious weakness 
concerning hers. Every dress had its own peculiar chron- 
icle of the scenes where it had been, the enjoyments she 
had shared in it. Particular dresses were special memo- 
rials of her loves, her pleasures, her little passing pains: as 
long as a bit remained of the poor old fabric, the sight of 
it recalled them all. 

This brown merino — in which she had sat two whole 
winters over her Greek and Latin by Robert Lyon’s side, 
which he had once stopped to touch and notice, saying 
what a pretty color it was, and how he liked soft-feeling 
dresses for women — to cut up this old brown merino seem- 
ed to hurt her so she could almost have cried. 

Yet what would Johanna think if she refused? And 
there was Elizabeth absolutely in want of clothes. “I 
must be growing very wicked,” thought poor Hilary. 

She lay a good while silent in the dark, while Johanna 
planned and replanned — calculating how, even with the 
addition of an old cape of her own, which was out of the 
same piece, this hapless gown could be made to fit the 
gaunt frame of Elizabeth Hand. Her poor kindly brain 
was in the last extremity of muddle, when Hilary, with a 
desperate effort, dashed in to the rescue, and soon made all 
clear, contriving body, skirt, sleeves, and all. 

“ You have the best head in the world, my love. I don’t 
know whatever I should do without you.” 

“ Luckily you are never likely to be tried. So give me 
a kiss ; and good-night, Johanna.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


39 


I misdoubt many will say I am writing about small, ri- 
diculously small things. Yet is not the whole of life made 
up of infinitesimally small things ? And in its strange and 
solemn mosaic, the full pattern of which we never see 
clearly till looking back on it from far away, dare we say 
of any thing which the hand of Eternal Wisdom has put 
together that it is too common or too small ? 


CHAPTER IV. 

While her anxious mistresses were thus talking her 
over the servant lay on her humble bed and slept. They 
knew she did, for they heard her heavy breathing through 
the thin partition-wall. Whether, as Hilary suggested, 
she was too ignorant to notice the days of the week or 
month, or, as Selina thought, too stupid to care for any 
thing beyond eating, drinking, and sleeping, Elizabeth 
manifested no anxiety about herself or her destiny. She 
went about her work just as usual ; a little quicker and 
readier, now she was becoming familiarized to it ; but she 
said nothing. She was undoubtedly a girl of silent and 
undemonstrative nature. 

“ Sometimes still waters run deep,” said Miss Hilary. 

“Nevertheless, there are such things as canals,” replied 
Johanna. “When do you mean to have your little talk 
with her ?” 

Hilary did not know. She was sitting, rather more tired 
than usual, by the school-room fire, the little people having 
just departed for their Saturday half- holiday. Before 
clearing off the debris which they always left behind, she 
stood a minute at the window, refreshing her eyes with 
the green field opposite, and the far-away wood, crowned 
by a dim white monument, visible in fair weather, on which 
those bright brown eyes had a trick of lingering, even in 
the middle of school-hours. For the wood and the hill be- 
yond belonged to a nobleman’s “show” estate five miles 
off— the only bit of real landscape beauty that Hilary had 


40 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ever beheld. There, during the last holidays but one, she, 
her sisters, her nephew, and, by his own special request, 
Mr. Lyon, had spent a whole long, merry, midsummer day. 
She wondered whether such a day would ever come again. 

But spring was coming again, anyhow : the field looked 
smiling and green, speckled here and there with white dots, 
which, she opined, might possibly be daisies. She half 
wished she was not too old and dignified to dart aaross 
the road, leap the sunk fence, and run to see. 

“I think, Johanna — Hark ! what can that be ?” 

For at this instant somebody came tearing down the 
stairs, opened the front door, and did — exactly what Hila- 
ry had just been wishing to do. 

“ It’s Elizabeth, without her bonnet or shawl, with some- 
thing white flying behind her. How she is dashing across 
the field ! What can she be after? Just look.” 

But loud screams from Selina’s room — the front one — 
where she had been lying in bed all morning, quite oblit- 
erated the little servant from their minds. The two sisters 
ran hastily up stairs. 

Selina was sitting up, in undisguised terror and agitation. 

“ Stop her ! Hold her ! I’m sure she has gone mad. 
Lock the door — or she’ll come back and murder us all.” 

“Who — Elizabeth? Was she here? What has been 
the matter ?” 

But it was some time before they could make out any 
thing. At last they gathered that Elizabeth had been 
waiting upon Miss Selina, putting vinegar-cloths on her 
head, and doing various things about the room. “ She is 
very handy when one is ill,” even Selina allowed. 

“ And I assure you I was talking most kindly to her : 
about the duties of her position, and how she ought to 
dress better, and be more civil-behaved, or else she never 
could expect to keep any place. And she stood in her 
usual sulky way of listening, never answering a word-^ 
with her back to me, staring right out of window. And I 
had just said, ‘ Elizabeth, my girl’ — indeed, Hilary, I was 
talking to her in my very kindest way — ” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


41 


“ I’ve no doubt of it — but do get on.” 

“ When she suddenly turned round, snatched a clean 
towel from a chair-back, and another from my head — actu- 
ally from my very head, Johanna — and out she ran. I 
called after her, but she took no more notice than if I had 
been a stone. And she left the door wide open — blowing 
upon me. Oh, dear ; she has given me my death of cold.” 
And Selina broke into piteous complainings. 

Her elder sister soothed her as well as she could, while 
Hilary ran down to the front door and looked, and inquired 
every where for Elizabeth. She was not to be seen on 
field or road ; and along that quiet terrace not a soul had 
even perceived her quit the house. 

“ It’s a very odd thing,” said Hilary, returning. “ What 
can have come over the girl? You are sure, Selina, that 
you said nothing which — ” 

“ Now I know what you are going to say. You are go- 
ing to blame me. Whatever happens in this house you 
always blame me. And perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I 
am a nuisance — a burden — would be far better dead and 
buried. I wish I were !” 

When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were si- 
lenced. They quieted her a little, and then went down 
and searched the house all over. 

All was in order — at least in as much order as was to be 
expected the hour before dinner. The bowl of half-peeled 
potatoes stood on the back kitchen “ sink ;” the roast was 
down before the fire ; the knives were ready for cleaning. 
Evidently Elizabeth’s flight had not been premeditated. 

“It’s all nonsense about her going mad. She has as 
sound a head as I have,” said Hilary to Johanna, who be- 
gan to look seriously uneasy. “ She might have run away 
in a fit of passion, certainly ; and yet that is improbable ; 
her temper is more sullen than furious. And, having no 
lack of common sense, she must know that doing a thing 
like this is enough to make her lose her place at once.” 

Yes,” said Johanna, mournfully, “I’m afraid after this 
she must go.” 


42 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ Wait and see what she has to say for herself,” pleaded 
Hilary. “ She will surely be back in two or three min- 
utes.” 

But she was not, nor even in two or three hours. 

Her mistresses’ annoyance became displeasure, and that 
again subsided into serious apprehension. Even Selina 
ceased talking over and over the incident which gave the 
sole information to be arrived at ; rose, dressed, and came 
down to the kitchen. There, after long and anxious con- 
sultation, Hilary, observing that “somebody had better 
do something,” began to prepare the dinner, as in pre- 
Elizabethan days; but the three ladies’ appetites were 
small. 

About three in the afternoon, Hilary, giving utterance 
to the hidden alarm of all, said, 

“ I think, sisters, I had better go down as quickly as I 
can to Mrs. Hand’s.” 

This agreed, she stood consulting with Johanna as to 
what could possibly be said to the mother in case that un- 
fortunate child had not gone home, when the kitchen door 
opened, and the culprit appeared. 

Not, however, with the least look of a culprit. Hot she 
was, and breathless; and with her hair down about her 
ears, and her apron rolled up round her waist, presented a 
most forlorn and untidy aspect ; but her eyes were bright, 
and her countenance glowing. 

She took a towel from under her arm. “There’s one on 
’em — and you’ll get back — the other — when it’s washed.” 

Having blurted out this, she leaned against the wall, 
trying to recover her breath. 

“ Elizabeth ! Where have you been ? How dared you 
go? Your behavior is disgraceful — most disgraceful, I 
say. Johanna, why don’t you speak to your servant?” 
(When, for remissness in reproving others, the elder sister 
fell herself under reproof, it was always emphatically “ your 
sister” — “ your nephew” — “ your servant.”) 

But, for once, Miss Selina’s sharp voice failed to bring 
the customary sullen look to Elizabeth’s face, and when 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


43 


Miss Leaf, in her milder tones, asked where she had been, 
she answered unhesitatingly, 

“ I’ve been down the town.” 

“ Down the town !” the three ladies cried, in one chorus 
of astonishment. 

“ I’ve been as quick as I could, missis. I runned all the 
way, there and back ; but it was a good step, and he was 
some’at heavy, though he is but a little ’un.” 

“ He ! who on earth is he 

“ Deary me ! I never thought of axing ; but his mother 
lives in Hall Street. Somebody saw me carrying him to 
the doctor, and went and told her. Oh ! he was welly 
killed, Miss Leaf — the doctor said so ; but he’ll do now, 
and you’ll get your towel clean washed to-morrow.” 

While Elizabeth spoke so incoherently, and with such 
unwonted energy and excitement, Johanna looked as if she 
thought her sister’s fears were true, and the girl had really 
gone mad; but Hilary’s quicker perceptions jumped at a 
different conclusion. 

“ Quiet yourself, Elizabeth,” said she, taking a firm hold 
of her shoulder, and making her sit down, when the rolled- 
up apron dropped, and showed itself all covered with blood- 
spots. Selina screamed outright. 

Then Elizabeth seemed to become half conscious that 
she had done something blamable, or was at least a sus- 
pected character. Her warmth of manner faded ; the sul- 
len cloud of dogged resistance to authority was raging in 
her poor dirty face, when Hilary, beginning with “Now, 
we are not going to scold you, but we must hear the rea- 
son of this,” contrived by adroit questions, and not a few 
of them, to elicit the whole story. 

It appeared that, while standing at Miss Selina’s window, 
Elizabeth had watched three little boys apparently en- 
gaged in a very favorite amusement of little boys in that 
field — going quickly behind a horse, and pulling out the 
longest and handsomest hairs in his tail to make fishing- 
lines of. She saw the animal give a kick, and two of the 
boys ran away; the other did not stir. For a minute or 


44 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


so she noticed a black lump lying in the grass ; then, with 
the quick instinct for which nobody had ever given her 
credit, she guessed what had happened, and did immedi- 
ately the wisest and only thing possible under the circum- 
stances, namely, to snatch up a towel, run across the field, 
bind up the child’s head as well as she could, and carry it, 
bleeding and insensible, to the nearest doctor, who lived 
nearly a mile off. 

She did not tell — and they only found it out afterward 
— how she had held the boy while under the doctor’s 
hands, the skull being so badly fractured that the fright- 
ened mother fainted at the sight : how she had finally car- 
ried him home, and left him comfortably settled in bed, his 
senses returned, and his life saved. 

“Ay, my arms do ache above a bit,” she said, in answer 
to Miss Leaf’s questions. “ He wasn’t quite a baby — nigh 
upon twelve, I reckon ; but then he was very small of his 
age. And he looked just as if he was dead — and he bled 
so.” 

Here, just for a second or two, the color left the big 
girl’s lips, and she trembled a little. Miss Leaf went to 
the kitchen cupboard, and took out their only bottle of 
wine — administered in rare doses, exclusively as medicine. 

“ Drink this, Elizabeth ; and then go and wash your face 
and eat your dinner. We will talk to you by-and-by.” 

Elizabeth looked up with a long, wistful stare of intense 
surprise, and then added, “ Have I done any thing wrong, 
missis ?” 

“ I did not say so. But drink this, and don’t talk, child.” 

She was obeyed. By-and-by Elizabeth disappeared into 
the back kitchen, emerged thence with a clean face, hands, 
and apron, and went about her afternoon business as if 
nothing had happened. 

Her mistresses’ threatened “talk” with her never came 
about. What, indeed, could they say ? No doubt the lit- 
tle servant had broken the strict letter of domestic law by 
running off in that highly eccentric and inconvenient way; 
but, as Hilary tried to explain by a series of most ingen- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


45 


ious ratiocinations, she had fulfilled, in the spirit of it, the 
very highest law — that of charity. She had also shown 
prompt courage, decision, practical and prudent fore- 
thought, and, above all, entire self-forgetfulness. 

“And I should like to know,” said Miss Hilary, wanning 
with her subject, “ if those are not the very qualities which 
go to constitute a hero.” 

“ But we don’t want a hero ; we want a maid-of-all- 
work.” 

“ I’ll tell you what we want, Selina. We want a wom- 
an — that is, a girl with the making of a good woman in 
her. If we can find that, all the rest will follow. For my 
part, I would rather take this child, rough as she is, but 
with her truthfulness, conscientiousness, kindliness of heart, 
and evident capability of both self-control and self-devoted- 
ness, than the most finished servant we could find. My 
advice is — keep her.” 

This settled the matter, since it was a curious fact that 
the “ advice” of the youngest Miss Leaf was, whether they 
knew it or not, almost equivalent to a family ukase. 

When Elizabeth had brought in the tea-things, which 
6he did with especial care, apparently wishing to blot out 
the memory of the morning’s escapade by astonishingly 
good behavior for the rest of the day, Miss Leaf called her, 
and asked if she knew that her month of trial ended this 
day. 

“Yes, ma’am,” with the strict formal courtesy, some- 
thing between that of the old-world family domestic — as 
her mother might have been to the Miss Elizabeth Some- 
thing she was named after — and the abrupt “ dip” of the 
modern national school-girl, which constituted Elizabeth 
Hand’s sole experience of manners. 

“If you had not been absent I should have gone to speak 
to your mother to-day. Indeed, Miss Hilary was going 
when you came in ; but it would have been with a very 
different intention from what we had in the morning. 
However, that is not likely to happen again.” 

“ Eh ?” said Elizabeth, inquiringly. 


46 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Miss Leaf hesitated, and looked uneasily at her two sis- 
ters. It was always a trial to her shy nature to find her- 
self the mouth-piece of the family ; and this same shyness 
made it still more difficult to break through the stiff bar- 
riers which seemed to rise up between her, a gentlewoman 
well on in years, and this coarse working-girl. She felt, as 
she often complained, that with the kindest intentions she 
did not quite know how to talk to Elizabeth. 

“ My sister means,” said Hilary, “ that as we are not like- 
ly to have little boys half killed in the field every day, she 
trusts you will not be running away again as you did this 
morning. She feels sure that you would not do such a 
thing, putting us all to so great annoyance and uneasiness, 
for any less cause than such as happened to-day. You 
promise that ?” 

“ Yes, Miss Hilary.” 

“ Then we quite forgive you as regards ourselves. Nay” 
— feeling, in spite of Selina’s warning nudge, that she had 
hardly been kind enough — “ we rather praise than blame 
you, Elizabeth. And if you like to stay with us, and will 
do your best to improve, we are willing to keep you as our 
servant.” 

“ Thank you, ma’am. Thank you, Miss Hilary. Yes, 
I’ll stop.” 

She said no more, but sighed a great sigh, as if her mind 
were relieved — (“ So,” thought Hilary, “ she was not so in- 
different to us as we imagined”) — and bustled back into 
her kitchen. 

“ Now for the clothing of her,” observed Miss Leaf, also 
looking much relieved that the decision was over. “You 
know what we agreed upon, and there is certainly no time 
to be lost. Hilary, my dear, suppose you bring down your 
brown merino?” 

Hilary went without a word. 

People who inhabit the same house, eat, sit, and sleep 
together — loving one another and sympathizing with one 
another ever so deeply and dearly — nevertheless inevita- 
bly have momentary seasons when the intense solitude in 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


47 


which we all live, and must expect ever to live, at the 
depth of our being, forces itself painfully upon the heart. 
Johanna must have had many such seasons when Hilary 
was a child ; Hilary had one now. 

She unfolded the old frock, and took out of its pocket — 
a hiding-place at once little likely to be searched and harm- 
less if discovered, a poor little memento of that happy mid- 
summer day : 

“ Dear Miss Hilary , — To-morrow, then, I shall come . 
Yours truly , Robert Lyon” 

The only scrap of note she had ever received; he al- 
ways wrote to Johanna — as regularly as ever, or more so, 
now Ascott was gone — but only to Johanna. She read 
over the two lines, wondered where she should keep them 
now that Johanna might not notice them, and then recoil- 
ed, as if the secret were a wrong to that dear sister who 
loved her so well. 

“But nothing makes me love her less; nothing ever 
could. She thinks me quite happy ; so I am ; and yet — 
oh, if I did not miss him so !” 

And the aching, aching want which sometimes came 
over her began again. Let us not blame her. God made 
all our human needs. God made love ; not merely affec- 
tion, but actual love — the necessity to seek and find out 
some other being; not another, but the complement of 
one’s self — the “ other half” who brings rest and strength 
for weakness, sympathy in aspiration, and tenderness for 
tenderness, as no other person ever can. Perhaps, even in 
marriage, this love is seldom found, and it is possible in all 
lives to do without it. Johanna had done so. But then 
she had been young, and was now growing old ; and Hila- 
ry was only twenty, with a long life before her. Poor 
child ! let us not blame her. 

She was not in the least sentimental, her natural dispo- 
sition inclining her to be more than cheerful — actually gay. 
She soon recovered herself ; and when, a short time after, 
she stood, scissors in hand, demonstrating how very easy 
it was to make something out of nothing, her sisters nevei 


48 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


suspected how very near tears had lately been to those 
bright eyes, which were always the sunshine of the house. 

“ You are giving yourself a world of trouble,” said Seli- 
na. “If I were you I would just make over the dress to 
Elizabeth, and let her do what she could with it.” 

“ My dear, I always find I give myself twice the trouble 
by expecting people to do what they can’t do. I have to 
do it myself afterward. Prove how a child who can’t even 
handle a needle and thread is competent to make a gown 
for herself, and I shall be most happy to secede in her fa- 
vor.” 

“Nay,” put in the eldest sister, afraid of a collision of 
words, “ Selina is right ; if you do not teach Elizabeth to 
make her own gowns, how can she learn ?” 

“Johanna, you are the brilliantest of women! and you 
know you don’t like the parlor littered with rags and cut- 
tings. You wish to get rid of me for the evening ? Well, 
I’ll go ! Hand me the work-basket and the bundle, and I’ll 
give my first lesson in dress-making to our South-Sea Isl- 
ander.” 

But Fate stood in the way of Miss Hilary’s good inten- 
tions. 

She found Elizabeth, not as was her wont, always busy 
over the perpetual toil of those who have not yet learned 
the mysterious art of arrangement and order, nor, as some- 
times, hanging sleepily over the kitchen fire, waiting for 
bedtime, but actually sitting — sitting down at the table. 
Her candle was flaring on one side of her ; on the other 
was the school-room ink-stand, a scrap of waste paper, and 
a pen. But she was not writing ; she sat with her head 
on her hands, in an attitude of disconsolate idleness, so ab- 
sorbed that she seemed not to hear Hilary’s approach. 

“ I did not know you could write, Elizabeth.” 

“No more I can,” was the answer, in the most doleful of 
voices. “ It bean’t no good. I’ve forgotten all about it, 
T’ letters wonna join.” 

“ Let me look at them.” And Hilary tried to contem 
plate gravely the scrawled and blotted page, which looked 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


49 


very much as if a large spider had walked into the ink- 
bottle and then walked out again on a tour of investiga- 
tion. “ What did you want to write ?” asked she, sud- 
denly. 

Elizabeth blushed violently. “ It was the woman, Mrs. 
Cliffe, t’ little lad’s mother, you know ; she wanted some- 
body to write to her husband as is at work in Birming- 
ham, and I said I would. I’d learned at the National, but 
I’ve forgotten it all. I’m just as Miss Selina says — I’m 
good for nowt.” 

“ Come, come, never fret for there was a sort of choke 
in the girl’s voice. “There’s many a good person who 
never learned to write. But I don’t see why you should 
not learn. Shall I teach you ?” 

Utter amazement, beaming gratitude, succeeded one an- 
other plain as light in Elizabeth’s eyes ; but she only said, 
“ Thank you, Miss Hilary.” 

“Very well. I have brought you an old gown of mine, 
and was going to show you how to make it up for your- 
self, but I’ll look over your writing instead. Sit down, and 
let me see what you can do.” 

In a state of nervous trepidation pitiful to behold, Eliza- 
beth took the pen. Terrible scratching resulted ; blots in- 
numerable ; and one fatal deluge of ink, which startled 
from their seats both mistress and maid, and made Hilary 
thankful that she had taken off her better gown for a com- 
mon one, as, with sad thriftiness, the Misses Leaf always 
did of evenings. 

When Elizabeth saw the mischief she had done, her con- 
trition and humility were unbounded. “ No, Miss Hilary, 
you can’t make nothin’ of me. I be too stupid. I’ll give 
it up.” 

“ Nonsense !” And the bright, active little lady looked 
steadily into the heavy face of this undeveloped girl, half 
child, half woman, until some of her own spirit seemed to 
be reflected there. Whether the excitement of the morn- 
ing had roused her, or her mistresses’ kindness had touched 
Elizabeth’s heart, and — as in most women — the heart was 


50 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


the key to the intellect ; or whether the gradual daily in- 
fluence of her changed life during the last month had been 
taking effect, now for the first time to appear, certain it is 
that Hilary had never perceived before what an extremely 
intelligent face it was — what good sense was indicated in 
the well-shaped head and forehead— what tenderness and 
feeling in the deep-set gray eyes. 

“ Nonsense,” repeated she. “ Never give up any thing ; 

I never would. "We 5 11 try a different plan, and begin from 
the beginning, as I do with my little scholars. Whit while 
I fetch a copy-book out of the parlor press.” 

She highly amused her sisters with a description of what 
she called “ her newly-instituted Polynesian Academy,” re- 
turned, and set to work to guide the rough, coarse hand 
through the mysteries of caligraphy. 

To say this was an easy task would not be true. Na- 
ture’s own laws and limits make the using of faculties 
which have been unused for generations very difficult at 
first. To suppose that a working man, the son of working 
men, who applies himself to study, does it with as little 
trouble as your upper-class children, who have been uncon- 
sciously undergoing education ever since the cradle, is a 
great mistake. All honor, therefore, to those who do at- 
tempt, and to ever so small a degree succeed in the best 
and surest culture of all, self-culture. 

Of this honor Elizabeth deserved her share. 

“ She is stupid enough,” Hilary confessed, after the les- 
son was over ; “ but there is a dogged perseverance about 
the girl which I actually admire. She blots her fingers, 
her nose, her apron, but she never gives in ; and she sticks 
to the grand principle of one thing at a time. I think she 
did two whole pages of a’s, and really performed them sat- 
isfactorily, before she asked to go on to b’s. Yes, I be* 
lieve she will do.” 

“ I hope she will do her work, any how,” said Selina, 
breaking into the conversation rather crossly. “ I’m sure 
I don’t see/ the good of wasting time over teaching Eliza- 
beth to write when there’s so much to be done in the house 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


51 


by one and all of us from Monday morning till Saturday 
night.” 

“ Ay, that’s it,” answered Hilary, meditatively. “ I don’t 
see how I ever shall g$t time to teach her, and she is so 
tired of nights when the work is all done ; she’ll be drop- 
ping asleep with the pen in her hand — I have done it my- 
self before now.” 

Ay, in those days when, trying so hard to “ improve her 
mind,” and make herself a little more equal and compan- 
ionable to another mind she knew, she had, after her daily 
house cares and her six hours of school-teaching, attempted 
at nine P.M. to begin close study on her own account. And 
though with her strong will she succeeded tolerably, still, 
as she told Johanna, she could well understand how slow 
w r as the “march of intellect” (a phrase which had just 
then come up) among day-laborers and the like ; and how 
difficult it w^as for these Mechanics’ Institutions, which 
were now talked so much of, to put any new ideas into the 
poor tired heads, rendered sluggish and stupid with hard 
bodily labor. 

“ Suppose I were to hold my Polynesian Academy on a 
Sunday ?” and she looked inquiringly at her sisters, espe- 
cially Johanna. 

Now the Misses Leaf were old-fashioned country-folk, 
who lived before the words Sabbatarian and un-Sabbatari- 
an had ever got into the English language. They simply 
“ remembered the Sabbath-day to keep it holy they ar- 
ranged so as to make it for all the household a day of rest ; 
and they went regularly to church once — sometimes Selina 
and Hilary went twice. For the intervening hours, their 
usual custom was to take an afternoon walk in the fields : 
begun chiefly for Ascott’s sake, to keep the lad out of mis- 
chief, and put into his mind better thoughts than he was 
likely to get from his favorite Sunday recreation of sitting 
on the wall throwing stones. After he left for London 
there was Elizabeth to be thought of; and they decided 
that the best Sabbath duty for the little servant was to go 
and see her mother. So they gave her every Sunday aft* 


52 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


ernoon free, only requiring that she should be at home 
punctually after church-time, at eight o’clock. But from 
thence till bedtime was a blank two hours, which, Hilary 
had noticed, Elizabeth not unfrequently spent in dozing 
over the fire. 

“ And I wonder,” said she, giving the end of her long 
meditation out loud, “ whether going to sleep is not as 
much Sabbath-breaking as learning to write? What do 
you say, Johanna?” 

Johanna, simple, God-fearing woman as she was, to whom 
faith and love came as natural as the breath she drew, had 
never perplexed herself with the question. She only smiled 
acquiescence. But Selina was greatly shocked. Teaching 
to w T rite on a Sunday ! Bringing the week-day work into 
the day of rest ! Doing one’s own pleasure on the holy 
day ! She thought it exceedingly wrong. Such a thing 
had never been heard of in their house. Whatever else 
might be said of them, the Leafs were always a respecta- 
ble family as to keeping Sunday. Nobody could say that 
even poor Henry — 

But here Selina’s torrent of words stopped. 

When conversation revived, Hilary, who had been at 
first half annoyed and half amused, resumed her point se- 
riously. 

“ I might say that writing isn’t Elizabeth’s week-day 
work, and that teaching her is not exactly doing my own 
pleasure ; but I won’t creep out of the argument by a quib- 
ble. The question is, What is keeping the Sabbath-day 
‘ holy ?’ I say — and I stick to my opinion — that it is by 
making it a day of worship, a rest day — a cheerful and 
happy day — and by doitfg as much good in it as we can ; 
and, therefore, I mean to teach Elizabeth on a Sunday.” 

“ She’ll never understand it. She’ll consider it ‘ work.’ ” 

“ And if she did, work is a more religious thing than 
idleness. I am sure I often feel that, of the two, I should 
be less sinful in digging potatoes in my garden, or sitting 
mending stockings in my parlor, than in keeping Sunday 
as some people do — going to church genteelly in my best 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


53 


clothes, eating a huge Sunday dinner, and then nodding 
over a good book, or taking a regular Sunday nap, till bed- 
time.” 

“Hush, child!” said Johanna, reprovingly; for Hilary’s 
cheeks were red, and her voice angry. She was taking the 
hot, youthful part, which, in its hatred of shams and forms, 
sometimes leads — and not seldom led poor Hilary — a little 
too far on the other side. “I think,” Miss Leaf added, 
“that our business is with ourselves, and not with our 
neighbors. Let us keep the Sabbath according to our con- 
science. Only, I would take care never to do any thing 
which jarred against my neighbor’s feelings. I would, like 
Paul, ‘ eat no meat while the world standeth’ rather than 
‘make my brother to offend.’ ” 

Hilary looked in her sister’s sweet, calm face, and the 
anger died out of her own. 

“ Shall I give up my academy ?” she said, softly. 

“Ho, my love. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath- 
day, and teaching a poor ignorant girl to write is an abso- 
lute good. Make her understand that, and you need not 
be afraid of any harm ensuing.” 

“ You never will make her understand,” said Selina, sul- 
lenly. “ She is only a servant.” 

“nevertheless, I’ll try.” 

Hilary could not tell how far she succeeded in simplify- 
ing to the young servant’s comprehension this great ques- 
tion, involving so many points — such as the following of 
the spirit and the letter, the law of duty and the compul- 
sion of love, which, as she spoke, seemed opening out so 
widely and awfully that she herself involuntarily shrank 
from it, and wondered that poor finite creatures should 
ever presume to squabble about it at all. 

But one thing the girl did understand — her young mis- 
tress’s kindness. She stood watching the little delicate 
hand that had so patiently guided hers, and now wrote 
copy after copy for her future benefit. At last she said, 

“ You’re taking a deal o’ trouble wi’ a poor wench, and 
it’s very kind in a lady like you.” 


54 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Miss Hilary was puzzled what answer to make. True 
enough, it was “ kind,” and she was a “ lady and between 
her and Mrs. Hand’s rough daughter was an unmistakable 
difference and distinction. That Elizabeth perceived it 
was proved by her growing respectfulness of manner — the 
more respectful, it seemed, the more she herself improved. 
Yet Hilary could not bear to make her feel more sharply 
than was unavoidable the great gulf that lies, and ever 
must lie — not so much between mistress and servant, in 
their abstract relation — (and yet that is right, for the rela- 
tion and authority is ordained of God) — but between the 
educated and the ignorant, the coarse and the refined. 

“Well,” she said, after a pause of consideration, “ you al- 
ways have it in your power to repay my ‘ kindness,’ as you 
call it. The cleverer you become, the more useful you will 
be to me ; and the more good you grow, the better I shall 
like you.” 

Elizabeth smiled — that wonderfully bright, sudden smile 
which seemed to cover over all her plainness of feature. 

“ Once upon a time,” Hilary resumed by-and-by, “ when 
England was very different from what it is now, English 
ladies used to have what they call ‘ bower-women,’ whom 
they took as girls, and brought up in their service ; teach- 
ing them all sorts of things — cooking, sewing, spinning, 
singing, and, probably, except that the ladies of that time 
were very ill educated themselves, to read and write also. 
They used to spend part of every day among their bower- 
women; and as people can only enjoy the company of those 
with whom they have some sympathy in common, we must 
conclude that — ” 

Here Hilary stopped, recollecting she must be discours- 
ing miles above the head of her little bower-maiden, and 
that, perhaps, after all, her theory would be best kept to 
herself, and only demonstrated practically. 

“So, Elizabeth, if I spend a little of my time in teaching 
you, you must grow up my faithful and attached bower- 
maiden.” 

“I’ll grow up any thing, Miss Hilary, if it’s to please 


MISTBESS AND MAID. 


55 


you,” was the answer, given with a smothered intensity 
that quite startled the young mistress. 

“ I do believe the girl is getting fond of me,” said she, 
half touched, half laughing, to Johanna. “If so, we shall 
get on. It is just as with our school-children, you know. 
We have to seize hold of their hearts first, and their heads 
afterward. Now Elizabeth’s head may be uncommonly 
tough, but I do believe she likes me.” 

Johanna smiled ; but she would not for the world have 
said — never encouraging the smallest vanity in her child 
— that she did not think this circumstance so very remark- 
able. 


CHAPTER Y. 

A household exclusively composed of women has its 
advantages and its disadvantages. It is apt to become 
somewhat narrow in judgment, morbid in feeling, absorb- 
ed in petty interests, and bounding its vision of outside 
things to the small horizon which it sees from its own fire- 
side. But, on the other hand, by this fireside often abides 
a settled peace and purity, a long-suffering, generous for- 
bearance, and an enduring affectionateness which the oth- 
er sex can hardly comprehend or credit. Men will not be- 
lieve, what is nevertheless the truth, that we can “ stand 
alone” much better than they can ; that we can do without 
them far easier, and with less deterioration of character, 
than they can do without us; that we are better able to 
provide for ourselves interests, duties, and pleasures; in 
short, strange as it may appear, that we have more real 
self-sustaining independence than they. 

Of course, that the true life, the highest life, is that of 
man and woman united, no one will be insane enough to 
deny ; I am speaking of the substitute for it, which poor hu- 
manity has so often to fall back upon and make the best of 
^-a better best very frequently than what appears best in 
the eyes of the world. In truth, many a troubled, care-rid- 
den, wealthy family, torn with dissensions, or frozen up in 


56 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


splendid formalities, might have envied that quiet, humble 
maiden household of the Misses Leaf, where their only trial 
was poverty, and their only grief the one which they knew 
the worst of, and had met patiently for many a year — poor 
Selina’s “ way.” 

I doubt not it was good for Elizabeth Hand that her first 
place — the home in which she received her first impressions 
— was this feminine establishment, simple and regular, in 
which was neither waste nor disorder allowed. Good, too, 
that while her mistresses’ narrow means restricted her in 
many things enjoyed by servants in richer families, their 
interests, equally narrow, caused to be concentrated upon 
herself a double measure of thought and care. She became 
absolutely “ one of the family,” sharing in all its concerns. 
From its small and few carnal luxuries — such as the cake, 
fruit, or pot of preserves, votive offerings from pupils’ par- 
ents — up to the newspaper and the borrowed book, noth- 
ing was either literally or metaphorically “locked up” 
from Elizabeth. 

This grand question of locking-up had been discussed in 
full conclave the day after her month of probation ended, 
the sisters taking opposite sides, as might have been ex- 
pected. Selina was for the immediate introduction of a 
locksmith and a key-basket. 

“ While she was only on trial it did not so much signi- 
fy ; besides, if it did, we had only buttons on the press- 
doors ; but now she is our regular servant we ought to in- 
stitute a regular system of authority. How can she re- 
spect a family that never locks up any thing ?” 

“ How can we respect a servant from whom we lock up 
every thing ?” 

“ Respect a servant ! What do you mean, Hilary ?” 

“I mean that if I did not respect a servant I would be 
very sorry to keep her one day in any house of mine.” 

“Wait till you’ve a house of your own to keep, miss,” 
said Selina, crossly. “I never heard such nonsense. Is 
that the way you mean to behave to Elizabeth ? leave ev- 
ery thing open to her — clothes, books, money ; trust her 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


5 ? 


with all your secrets ; treat her as your most particular 
friend ?” 

“ A girl of fifteen would he rather an inconvenient par- 
ticular friend ! And I have happily few secrets to trust 
her with. But if I could not trust her with our coffee, tea, 
sugar, and so on, and bring her up from the very first in 
the habit of being trusted, I would recommend her being 
sent away to-morrow.” 

“Very fine talking; and what do you say, Johanna? — 
if that is not an unnecessary question after Hilary has 
given her opinion.” 

“ I think,” replied the elder sister, taking no notice of 
the long-familiar innuendo, “that in this case Hilary is 
right. How people ought to manage in great houses I 
can not say, but in our small house it will be easier and 
better not to alter our simple ways. Trusting the girl, if 
she is a good girl, will only make her the more trustwor- 
thy ; if she is bad, we shall the sooner find it out and let 
her go.” 

But Elizabeth did not go. A year passed ; two years ; 
her wages were raised, and with them her domestic posi- 
tion. From a “girl” she was converted into a regular 
servant ; her pinafores gave place to grown-up gowns and 
aprons, and her rough head, at Miss Selina’s incessant in- 
stance, was concealed by a cap — caps being considered by 
that lady as the proper and indispensable badge of serv- 
anthood. 

To say that during her transition state, or even now that 
she had reached the cap era, Elizabeth gave her mistresses 
no trouble, would be stating a self-evident improbability. 
What young lass under seventeen, of any rank, does not 
cause plenty of trouble to her natural guardians? Who 
can “ put an old head on young shoulders ?” or expect from 
girls at the most unformed and unsatisfactory period of 
life that complete moral and mental discipline, that unfail- 
ing self-control, that perfection of temper and every thing 
else, which, of course, all mistresses always have? 

I am obliged to confess that Elizabeth had a few — nay, 


58 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


not a few — most obstinate faults ; that no child tries its 
parents, no pupil its school-teachers, more than she tried 
her three mistresses at intervals. She was often thought- 
less and careless, brusque in her manner, slovenly in her 
dress ; sometimes she was downright “ bad” — filled full, as 
some of her elders and betters are at all ages, with absolute 
naughtiness ; when she would sulk for hours and days to- 
gether, and make the whole family uncomfortable, as many 
a servant can make many a family small as that of the 
Misses Leaf. 

But still they never lost what Hilary termed their “ re- 
spect” for Elizabeth ; they never found her out in a lie, a 
meanness, or an act of deception or dishonesty. They took 
her faults as we must take the surface-faults of all connect- 
ed with us — patiently rather than resentfully, seeking to 
correct rather than to punish. And though there were 
difficult elements in the household, such as there being 
three mistresses to be obeyed — the youngest mistress a 
thought too lax, and the second one undoubtedly too se- 
vere — still no girl could live with these high-principled, 
much-enduring women without being impressed with two 
things which the serving class are slowest to understand 
— the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is 
die only effectual law to bring out good and restrain evil, 
the law of loving-kindness. 

Two fracases, however, must be chronicled, for after both 
the girl’s dismissal hung on a thread. The first was when 
Mrs. Cliffe, mother of Tommy Cliffe, who was nearly killed 
in the field, being discovered to be an ill sort of woman, 
and in the habit of borrowing from Elizabeth stray shil- 
lings which were never returned, was forbidden the house, 
Elizabeth resented it so fiercely that she sulked for a whole 
week afterward. 

The other and still more dangerous crisis in Elizabeth’s 
destiny was when a volume of Scott’s novels, having been 
missing for some days, was found hidden in her bed, and 
she lying awake reading it, was thus ignominiously discov- 
ered at eleven P.M. by Miss Selina, in consequence of the 
gleam of candle-light from under her door. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


59 


It was true, neither of these errors were actual moral 
crimes. Hilary even roused a volley of sharp words upon 
herself by declaring they had their source in actual virtues ; 
that a girl who would stint herself of shillings, and hold 
resolutely to any liking she had, even if unworthy, had a 
creditable amount of both self-denial and fidelity in her 
disposition. Also that a tired-out maid-of-all-work, who 
was kept awake of nights by her ardent appreciation of 
the “Heart of Mid-Lothian,” must possess a degree of both 
intellectual and moral capacity which deserved cultivation 
rather than blame. And though this surreptitious pursuit 
of literature under difficulties could not, of course, be al- 
lowed, I grieve to say that Miss Hilary took every oppor- 
tunity of not only giving the young servant books to read, 
but of talking to her about them. And also that a large 
proportion of these books were, to Miss Selina’s unmitiga- 
ted horror, absolutely fiction ! — stories, novels, even poet- 
ry — books that Hilary liked herself — books that had built 
up in her her own passionate dream of life ; wherein all the 
women were faithful, tender, heroic, self-devoted, and all 
the men were — something not unlike Robert Lyon. 

Did she do harm ? Was it, as Selina and even Johanna 
said sometimes, “ dangerous” thus to put before Elizabeth 
a standard of ideal perfection, a Quixotic notion of life — 
life in its full purpose, power, and beauty — such as other- 
wise never could have crossed the mind of this poor work- 
ing-girl, born of parents who, though respectable and wor- 
thy, were in no respect higher than the common work- 
ing class? I will not argue the point: I am not making 
Elizabeth a text for a sermon ; I am simply writing her 
story. 

One thing was certain — that by degrees the young wom- 
an’s faults lessened ; even that worst of them, the unmis- 
takable bad temper, not aggressive, but obstinately sullen, 
which made her and Miss Selina sometimes not on speak- 
ing terms for a week together. But she simply “ sulked 
she never grumbled or was pert; and she did her work 
just as usual, with a kind of dogged struggle not only 


60 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


against the superior powers, but against something within 
herself much harder to fight with. 

“ She makes me feel more sorry for her than angry with 
her,” Miss Leaf would sometimes say, coming out of the 
kitchen with that grieved face which was the chief sign 
of displeasure her sweet nature ever betrayed. “ She will 
have up-hill work through life, like us all, and more than 
many of us, poor child !” 

But gradually Elizabeth, too, copying involuntarily the 
rest of the family, learned to put up with Miss Selina, who, 
on her part, kept a sort of armed neutrality. And once, 
when a short but sharp illness of Johanna’s shook the 
household from its even tenor, startled every body out of 
their little tempers, and made them cling together and 
work together in a sort of fear-stricken union against one 
common grief, Selina allowed that they might have gone 
farther and fared worse on the day they engaged Eliza- 
beth. 

After this illness of his aunt Ascott came home. It was 
his first visit since he had gone to London ; Mr. Ascott, he 
said, objected to holidays. But now, from some unexplain- 
ed feeling, Johanna in her convalescence longed after the 
boy — no longer a boy, however, but nearly twenty, and 
looking fully his age. How proud his aunts were to march 
him up the town, and hear every body’s congratulations on 
his good looks and polished manners ! It was the old sto- 
ry — old as the hills ! I do not pretend to invent any thing 
new. Women, especially maiden aunts, will repeat the 
tale till the end of time, so long as they have youths be- 
longing to them on whom to expend their natural tenden- 
cy to clinging fondness, and ignorant, innocent hero-wor- 
ship. The Misses Leaf — ay, even Selina, whose irritation 
against the provoking boy was quite mollified by the ele- 
gant young man — were no wiser than their neighbors. 

But there was one person in the household who still ob- 
stinately refused to bow the knee to Ascott. Whether it 
was, as psychologists might explain, some instinctive po- 
larity in their natures, or whether, having once conceived 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


61 


a prejudice, Elizabeth held on to it like grim death, still 
there was the same unspoken antagonism between them. 
The young fellow took little notice of her except to ob- 
serve “ that she hadn’t grown any handsomer but Eliza- 
beth watched him with a keen severity that overlooked 
nothing, and resisted, with a passive pertinacity that was 
quite irresistible, all his encroachments on the family hab- 
its, all the little self-pleasing ways which Ascott had been 
so used to of old that neither he nor his aunts apparently 
recognized them as selfish. 

“ I canna bear to see him” (“ can not ,” suggested her 
mistress, who, not seeing any reason why Elizabeth should 
not speak the Queen’s English as well as herself, had insti- 
tuted A’s, and stopped a few more glaring provincialisms). 
“ I can not bear to see him, Miss Hilary, lolling on the arm- 
chair when missis looks so tired and pale, and sitting up 
o’ nights, burning double fires, and going up stairs at last 
with his boots on, waking every body. I dunnot like it, I 
say.” 

“You forget; Mr. Ascott has his studies. He must work 
for his next examination.” 

“ Why doesn’t he get up of a morning, then, instead of 
lying in bed, and keeping the breakfast about till ten ? 
Why can’t he do his learning by daylight? Daylight’s 
cheaper than mould candles, and a deal better for the eyes.” 

Hilary was puzzled. A truth was a truth, and to try 
and make it out otherwise, even for the dignity of the fam- 
ily, was something from which her honest nature revolted. 
Besides, the sharp-sighted servant would be the first to de- 
tect the inconsistency of one law of right for the parlor 
and another for the kitchen. So she took refuge in silence 
and in the apple-pudding she was making. 

But she resolved to seize the first opportunity of giving 
Ascott, by way of novelty, the severest lecture that tongue 
of aunt could bestow. And this chance occurred the same 
afternoon, when the other two aunts had gone out to tea 
to a house which Ascott voted “ slow,” and declined going 
to. She remained to make tea for him, and in the mean 


62 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


time took him for a constitutional up and clown the public 
walks hard by. 

Ascott listened at first very good-humoredly, once or 
twice calling her “ a dear little prig” in his patronizing 
wa y — h e was rather fond of patronizing his Aunt Hilary. 
But when she seriously spoke of his duties, as no longer a 
boy, but a man, who ought now to assume the true, manly 
right of thinking for and taking care of other people, espe- 
cially his aunts, Ascott began to flush up angrily. 

“ Now stop that, Aunt Hilary ; I’ll not have you coming 
Mr. Lyon over me.” 

“ What do you mean ?” 

For of late Ascott had said very little about Mr. Lyon 
— not half so much as Mr. Lyon, in his steadily persistent 
letters to Miss Leaf, told her about her nephew Ascott. 

“ I mean that I’ll not be preached to like that by a wom- 
an. It’s bad enough to have to stand it from a man ; but 
then Lyon’s a real sharp fellow, who knows the world, 
which women don’t, Aunt Hilary. Besides, he coaches me 
in my Latin and Greek ; so I let him pitch into me now 
and then. But I won’t let you ; so just stop it, will you ?” 

Something new in Ascott’s tone — speaking more of the 
resentful fierceness of the man than the pettishness of the 
boy — frightened his little aunt, and silenced her. By-and- 
by she took comfort from the reflection that, as the lad 
had in his anger betrayed, he had beside him in London a 
monitor whose preaching would be so much wiser and 
more effectual than her own that she determined to say no 
more. 

The rare hearing of Mr. Lyon’s name — for, time and ab- 
sence having produced their natural effect, except when his 
letters came, he was seldom talked about now — set Hilary 
thinking. 

“ Do you go to see him often ?” she said at last. 

“ Who — Mr. Lyon ?” And Ascott, delighted to escape 
into a fresh subject, became quite cheerful and communi- 
cative. “ Oh, bless you ! he wouldn’t care for my going 
to him. He lives in a two-pair back, only one room , 4 which 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


63 


serves him for kitchen, ancl parlor, and all dines at a cook- 
shop for ninepence a day, and makes his own porridge 
night and morning. He told me so once, for he isn’t a bit 
ashamed of it. But he must be precious hard up some- 
times. However, as he contrives to keep a decent coat on 
his back, and pay his classes at the University, and carry 
off the very best honors going there, nobody asks any 
questions. That’s the good of London, Aunt Hilary,” said 
the young fellow, drawing himself up with great wisdom. 
“ Only look like a gentleman, behave yourself as such, and 
nobody asks any questions.” 

“ Yes,” vaguely acquiesced Aunt Hilary. And then her 
mind wandered yearningly to the solitary student in the 
two-pair back. He might labor and suffer; he might be 
ill ; he might die, equally solitary, and “ nobody would ask 
any questions.” This phase of London life let a new light 
in upon her mind. The letters to Johanna had been chief- 
ly filled with whatever he thought would interest them. 
With his characteristic Scotch reserve he had said very lit- 
tle about himself, except in the last, wherein he mentioned 
that he had “ done pretty well” at college this term, and 
meant to “ go in for more work” immediately. 

What this work entailed — how much more toil, how 
much more poverty — Hilary knew not. Perhaps even his 
successes, which Ascott went on to talk of, had less place 
in her thoughts than the picture of the face she knew, 
sharpened with illness, wasted with hard work and soli- 
tary care. 

“ And I can not help him — I can not help him !” was her 
bitter cry ; until, passing from the dream-land of fancy, the 
womanly nature asserted itself. She thought if it had 
been, or if it were to be, her blessed lot to be chosen by 
Robert Lyon, how she would take care of him ! what an 
utter slave she would be to him ! How no penury would 
frighten her, no household cares oppress or humble her, if 
done for him and for his comfort. To her brave heart no 
battle of life seemed too long or too sore, if only it were 
fought for him and at his side. And as the early-falling 


64 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


leaves were blown in gusts across her path, and the misty 
autumn night began to close in, nature herself seemed to 
plead in unison with the craving of her heart, which sighed 
that youth and summer last not always ; and that, “ be it 
ever so humble,” as the song says, there is no place so 
bright and beautiful as the fireside of a loveful home. 

While the aunt and nephew were strolling thus, think- 
ing of very different things, their own fire, newly lit — As- 
cott liked a fire — was blazing away in solitary glory for 
the benefit of all passers-by. At length one — a gentleman 
— stopped at the gate, and looked in, then took a turn to 
the end of the terrace, and stood gazing in once more. 
The solitude of the room apparently troubled him ; twice 
his hand was on the latch before he opened it and knocked 
at. the front door. 

Elizabeth appeared, which seemed to surprise him. 

“ Is Miss Leaf at home ?” 

. “No, sir.” 

“ Is she well ? Are all the family well ?” and he stepped 
right into the passage, with the freedom of a familiar foot. 

(“ I should ha’ slammed the door in his face,” was Eliza- 
beth’s comment afterward, “ only, you see, Miss Hilary, 
he looked a real gentleman.”) 

The stranger and she mutually examined one another. 

“ I think I have heard of you,” said he, smiling. “ You 
are Miss Leaf’s servant — Elizabeth Hand.” 

“ Yes, sir,” still grimly, and with a determined grasp of 
the door-handle. 

“ If your mistresses are likely to be home soon, will you 
allow me to wait for them ? I am an old friend of theirs. 
My name is Lyon.” 

Now Elizabeth was far too much one of the family not 
to have heard of such a person. And his knowing her was 
a tolerable proof of his identity ; besides, unconsciously, 
the girl was influenced by that look and mien of true gen- 
tlemanhood, as courteous to the poor maid-of-all-work as 
he would have been to any duchess born; and by that 
bright, sudden smile, which came like sunshine over his 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


65 


face, and, like sunshine, warmed and opened the heart of 
every one that met it. 

It opened that of Elizabeth. She relaxed her Cerberus 
keeping of the door, and even went so far as to inform him 
that Miss Leaf and Miss Selina were out to tea, but Miss 
Hilary and Mr. Ascott would be at home shortly. He was 
welcome to wait in the parlor if he liked. 

Afterward, seized with mingled curiosity and misgiving, 
she made various errands to go in and look at him ; but 
she had not courage to address him, and he never spoke to 
her. He sat by the window, gazing out into the gloam- 
ing. Except just turning his head at her entrance, she did 
not think he had once stirred the whole time. 

Elizabeth went back to her kitchen, and stood listening 
for her young mistress’s familiar knock. Mr. Lyon seemed 
to have listened too, for before she could reach it the door 
was already opened. 

There was a warm greeting — -to her great relief ; for she 
knew she had broken the domestic laws in admitting a 
stranger unawares — and then Elizabeth heard them all 
three go into the parlor, where they remained talking, 
without ringing for either tea or candles, a full quarter of 
an hour. 

Miss Hilary at last came out, but, much to Elizabeth’s 
surprise, went straight up into her bedroom, without en- 
tering the kitchen at all. 

It was some minutes before she descended; and then, 
after giving her orders for tea, and seeing that all was ar- 
ranged with special neatness, she stood absently by the 
kitchen fire. Elizabeth noticed how wonderfully bright 
her eyes were, and what a soft, happy smile she had. She 
noticed it, because she had never seen Miss Hilary look ex- 
actly like that before ; and she never did again. 

“Don’t you be troubling yourself with waiting about 
here,” she said ; and her mistress seemed to start at being 
spoken to. “ I’ll get the tea all right, Miss Hilary. Please 
go back into the parlor.” 

Hilary went in. 


6G 


MISTEESS AXD MAID. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Elizabeth got tea ready with unwonted diligence and 
considerable excitement. Any visitor was a rare occur- 
rence in this very quiet family ; but a gentleman visitor — • 
a young gentleman too — was a remarkable fact, arousing 
both interest and curiosity. For in the latter quality this 
girl of seventeen could scarcely be expected to be defi- 
cient ; and as to the former, she had so completely identi- 
fied herself with the family she served, that all their con- 
cerns were her concerns also. Her acute comments on 
their few guests and on their little scholars sometimes 
amused Hilary as much as her criticisms on the books she 
read ; but, as neither were ever put forward intrusively or 
impertinently, she let them pass, and only laughed over 
them with Johanna in private. 

In speaking of these said books, and the questions they 
led to, it was not likely but that mistress and maid — one 
aged twenty-two, and the other seventeen — should occa- 
sionally light upon a subject rather interesting to women 
of their ages, though not commonly discussed between 
mistresses and maids. Nevertheless, when it did come in 
the way, Miss Hilary never shirked it, but talked it out, 
frankly and freely, as she would to any other person. 

“ The girl has feelings and notions on the matter, like all 
other girls, I suppose,” reasoned she to herself : “ so it is 
important that her notions should be kept clear, and her 
feelings right. It may do her some good, and save her 
from much harm.” 

And so it befell that Elizabeth Hand, whose blunt ways, 
unlovely person, and temperament so oddly nervous and 
reserved kept her from attracting any “ sweetheart” of 
her own class, had unconsciously imbibed her mistress’s 
theory of love. Love, pure and simple, the very deepest 
and highest, sweetest and most solemn thing in life : to be 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


67 


believed in devoutly until it came, and when it did come, 
to be held to firmly, faithfully, with a single-minded, set- 
tled constancy, till death — a creed quite impossible, many 
will say, in this ordinary world, and most dangerous to be 
put into the head of a poor servant. Yet a woman is but 
a woman, be she maid -servant or queen; and if, from 
queens to maid-servants, girls were taught thus to think 
of love, there might be a few more “ broken” hearts per- 
haps, but there would certainly be fewer wicked hearts ; 
far fewer corrupted lives of men and degraded lives of 
women ; far fewer unholy marriages, and desolated, drea- 
ry, homeless homes. 

Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea-things, stood list- 
ening to the voices in the parlor, and pondering. 

She had sometimes wondered in her own mind that no 
knight ever came to carry off her charming princess — her 
admired and beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her 
part, seemed totally indifferent to the youth at Stowbury, 
who indeed were, Elizabeth allowed, quite unworthy her 
regard. The only suitable lover for her young mistress 
must be somebody exceedingly grand and noble — a com- 
pound of the best heroes of Shakspeare, Scott, Fenimore 
Cooper, Maria Edgeworth, and Harriet Martineau. When 
this strange gentleman appeared — in ordinary coat and 
hat, or rather Glengary bonnet, neither particularly hand- 
some nor particularly tall, yet whose coming had evident- 
ly given Miss Hilary so much pleasure, and who, once or 
twice while waiting at tea, Elizabeth fancied she had seen 
looking at Miss Hilary as nobody ever looked before — 
when Mr. Robert Lyon appeared on the horizon, the faith- 
ful “ bower-maiden” was a good deal disappointed. 

She had expected something better ; at all events, some- 
thing different. Her first brilliant castle in the air fell, 
poor lass ! but she quickly built it up again, and, with the 
vivid imagination of her age, she mapped out the whole 
future, ending by a vision of Miss Hilary, all in white, 
sweeping down the Terrace in a carriage and pair — to for- 
tune and happiness ; leaving herself, though with a sore 


68 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


want at her heart, and a great longing to follow, to devote 
the remainder of her natural life to Miss Johanna. 

“ Her couldna do without somebody to see to her — and 
Miss Selina do worrit her so,” muttered Elizabeth, in the 
excitement of this Alnaschar vision, relapsing into her old 
provincialisms. “ So, even if Miss Hilary axes me to come, 
I’ll stop, I reckon. Ay, I’ll stop wi’ Miss Leaf.” 

This valorous determination taken, the poor maid-serv- 
ant’s dream was broken by the opening of the parlor door, 
and an outcry of Ascott’s for his coat and gloves, he hav- 
ing to fetch his aunts home at nine o’clock, Mr. Lyon ac- 
companying him. And as they all stood together at the 
front door, Elizabeth overheard Mr. Lyon say something 
about what a beautiful night it was. 

“ It would do you no harm, Miss Hilary ; will you walk 
with us ?” 

“ If you like.” 

Hilary went up stairs for her bonnet and shawl; but 
when, a minute or two after, Elizabeth followed her with 
a candle, she found her standing in the centre of the room, 
all in the dark, her face white, and her hands trembling. 

“ Thank you — thank you !” she said, mechanically, as 
Elizabeth folded and fastened her shawl for her, and de- 
scended immediately. Elizabeth watched her take, not 
Ascott’s arm, but Mr. Lyon’s, and walk down the terrace 
in the starlight. 

“ Some’at’s wrong. I’d like to know who’s been a-vexin’ 
of her,” thought fiercely the young servant. 

Ho, nobody had been “a-vexin”’ her mistress. There 
was nobody to blame ; only there had happened to Hilary 
one of those things which strike like a sword through a 
young and happy heart, taking all the life and youth out 
of it. 

Robert Lyon had, half an hour ago, told her — and she 
had had to hear it as a piece of simple news, to which she 
had only to say “ Indeed !” — that to-day and to-morrow 
were his two last days at Stowbury — almost his last in Em 
gland. Within a week he was to sail for India. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


69 


There had befallen him what most people would have 
considered a piece of rare good fortune. At the London 
University, a fellow-student, whom he had been gratuitous- 
ly “ coaching” in Hindostanee, fell ill, and was “ thrown 
upon his hands,” as he briefly defined services which must 
have been great, since they had resulted in this end. The 
young man’s father, a Liverpool and Bombay merchant, 
made him an offer to go out there to their house, at a ris- 
ing salary of 300 rupees a month for three years; after 
the third year to become a junior partner, remaining at 
Bombay in that capacity for two years more. 

This he told to Hilary and Ascott in almost as few words 
as I have here put it, for brevity seemed a refuge to him : 
it was also to one of them. But Ascott asked so many 
questions that his aunt needed to ask none. She only list- 
ened, and tried to take all in, and understand it — that is, 
in a consecutive, intelligent, business shape, without feeling 
it. She dared not let herself feel it, not for a second, till 
they were out, arm-in-arm, under the quiet winter stars. 
Then she heard his voice asking her, 

“ So you think I was right ?” 

“Right?” she echoed, mechanically. 

“ I mean, in accepting that sudden chance, and changing 
my whole plan of life. I did not do it — believe me — with- 
out a motive.” 

What motive ? she would once unhesitatingly have ask- 
ed ; now she could not. 

Robert Lyon continued speaking, distinctly and yet in 
an undertone, that, though Ascott was walking a few yards 
off, Hilary felt w r as meant for her alone to hear. . 

“ The change is, you perceive, from the life of a student 
to that of a man of business. I do not deny that I prefer- 
red the first. Once upon a time, to be a fellow in a col- 
lege, or a professor, or the like, w T as my utmost aim ; and I 
would have half killed myself to attain it. Now, I think 
differently.” 

He paused, but did not seem to require an answer, and 
it did not come. 


10 


MISTBESS AND MAID. 


“ I want not to be rich, but to get a decent competence, 
and to get it as soon as I can. I want not to ruin my 
health with incessant study. I have already injured it a 
good deal.” 

“ Have you been ill ? You never said so.” 

“ Oh no, it was hardly worth while. And I knew an 
active life would soon set me right again. No fear ! there’s 
life in the old dog yet. He does not wish to die. But,” 
Mr. Lyon pursued, “ I have had a ‘ sail* fecht’ the last year 
or two. I would not go through it again, nor see any one 
dear to me go through it. It is over, but it has left its 
scars. Strange ! I have been poor all my life, yet I never 
till now felt an actual terror of poverty.” 

Hilary shrank within herself, less even at the words than 
at something in their tone — something hard, nay, fierce ; 
something at once despairing and aggressive. 

“ It is strange,” she said ; “ such a terror is not like you. 
I feel none ; I can not even understand it.” 

w No ; I knew you could not,” he muttered, and was si- 
lent. 

So was Hilary. A vague trouble came over her. Could 
it be that he, Robert Lyon, had been seized with the auri 
sacra fames, which he had so often inveighed against and 
despised ? — that his long battle with poverty had caused 
in him such an overweening desire for riches that, to ob- 
tain them, he would sacrifice every thing else, exile him- 
self to a far country for years, selling his very life and soul 
for gold ? 

Such a thought of him was so terrible — that is, would 
have been were it tenable — that Hilary for an instant felt 
herself shiver all over. The next she spoke out — injustice 
to him she forced herself to speak out — all her honest soul. 

“ I do believe that this going abroad to make a fortune, 
which young men so delight in, is often a most fatal mis- 
take. They give up far more than they gain — country, 
home, health. I think a man has no right to sell his life 
any more than his soul for so many thousands a year.” 

Robert Lyon smiled. “ No ; and I am not selling mine. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


VI 


With my temperate habits I have as good a, chance of 
health at Bombay as in London — perhaps better. And 
the years I must be absent I would have been absent al- 
most as much from you — I mean they would have been 
spent in work as engrossing and as hard. They will soon 
pass, and then I shall come home rich — rich. Do you think 
I am growing mercenary ?” 

“ No.” 

“ Tell me what you do think about me.” 

“ I — can not quite understand.” 

“ And I can not make you understand. Perhaps I will, 
some day, when I come back again. Till then, you must 
trust me, Hilary.” 

It happens occasionally, in moments of all but intolera- 
ble pain, that some small thing — a word, a look, a touch of 
a hand, lets in such a gleam of peace that nothing ever ex- 
tinguishes the light of it : it burns on for years and years, 
sometimes clear, sometimes obscured, but as ineffaceable 
from life and memory as a star from its place in the heav- 
ens. Such, both then and through the lonely years to 
come, w T ere those five words, “ You must trust me, Hilary.” 

She did; and in the perfectness of that trust her own 
separate identity, with all its consciousness of pain, seemed 
annihilated : she did not think of herself at all, only of 
him, and with him, and for him. So, for the time being, 
she lost all sense of personal suffering, and their walk that 
night was as cheerful and happy as if they were to walk 
together for weeks, and months, and years in undivided 
confidence and content, instead of its being the last — the 
very last. 

Some one has said that all lovers have, soon or late, to 
learn to be only friends : happiest and safest are those in 
whom the friendship is the foundation — always firm and 
ready to fall back upon long after the fascination of pas- 
sion dies. It may take a little from the romance of these 
two if I own that Robert Lyon talked to Hilary not a word 
about love, and a good deal about pure business, telling 
her all his affairs and arrangements, and giving her as clear 


72 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


an idea of his future life as it was possible to do within the 
limits of one brief half hour. 

Then casting a glance round, and seeing that Ascott was 
quite out of earshot, he said, with that tender fall of the 
voice that felt, as some poet hath it, 

“Like a still embrace,” 

“Now tell me as much as you can about yourself.” 

At first there seemed nothing to tell, but gradually he 
drew from Hilary a good deal. Johanna’s feeble health, 
which caused her continuing to teach to be very unadvisa- 
ble ; and the gradual diminishing of the school — from what 
cause they could not account — which made it very doubt- 
ful whether some change would not soon or late be neces- 
sary. 

What this change should be she and Mr. Lyon discussed 
a little — as far as, in the utterly indefinite position of af- 
fairs, was possible. Also, from some other questions of his, 
she spoke to him about another dread which had lurked in 
her mind, and yet to which she could give no tangible 
shape — about Ascott. He could not remove it, he did not 
attempt ; but he soothed it a little, advising her as to the 
best way of managing the willful lad. His strong, clear 
sense, just judgment, and, above all, a certain unspoken 
sense of union, as if all that concerned her and hers he took 
naturally upon himself as his own, gave Hilary such com- 
fort that, even on this night, with a full consciousness of 
all that was to follow, she was happy — nay, she had not 
been so happy for years. Perhaps (let the truth be told, 
the glorious truth of true love, that its recognition, spoken 
or silent, constitutes the only perfect joy of life — that of 
two made one) — perhaps she had never been so really hap- 
py since she was born. 

The last thing he did was to make her give him an as- 
surance that in any and all difficulty she would apply to 
him. 

“ To me, and to no one else, remember. No one but my- 
self must help you. And I will, so long as I am alive. Do 
you believe this ?” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


73 


She looked up at him by the lamp-light, and said, “ I do.” 

“ And you promise ?” 

“ Yes” 

Then they loosed arms, and Hilary knew that they should 
never walk together again till — when, and how ? 

Returning, of course he walked with Miss Leaf; and 
throughout the next day, a terribly wet Sunday, spent by 
them entirely in the little parlor, they had not a minute of 
special or private talk together. He did not seem to wish 
it — indeed, almost avoided it. 

Thus slipped away the strange, still day — a Sunday nev- 
er to be forgotten. At night, after prayers were over, Mr. 
Lyon rose suddenly, saying he must leave them now; he 
was obliged to start from Stowbury at daybreak. 

“Shall we not see you again?” asked Johanna. 

“ No. This will be my last Sunday in England. Good- 
by !” 

He turned excessively pale, shook hands silently with 
them all — Hilary last — and almost before they recognized 
the fact he was gone. 

With him departed, not all Hilary’s peace, or faith, or 
courage of heart — for to all who love truly, while the best 
beloved lives, and lives worthily, no parting is hopeless 
and no grief overwhelming — but all the brightness of her 
youth, all the sense of joy that young people have in lov- 
ing and in being loved again, in fond meetings and fonder 
partings, in endless walks and talks, in sweet kisses and 
clinging arms. Such happiness was not for her ; when she 
saw it the lot of others, she said to herself, sometimes with 
a natural sharp sting of pain, but oftener with a solemn 
acquiescence, “It is the will of God; it is the will of 
God.” 

Johanna, too, who would have given her life almost to 
bring some color back to the white face of her darling, of 
whom she asked no questions, and who never complained 
nor confessed any thing, many and many a night, when 
Hilary either lay awake by her side, or tossed and moaned 
in her sleep till the elder sister took her in her arms like a 


n 


MISTRESS AND MaID. 


baby — Johanna, too, said to herself, “This is the will of 
God.” 

I have told thus much in detail the brief, sad story of Hi* 
lary’s youth, to show how impossible it was that Elizabeth 
Hand could live in the house with these two women with- 
out being strongly influenced by them, as every person — 
especially every woman — influences for good or for evil ev- 
ery other person connected with her or dependent upon 
her. 

Elizabeth was a girl of close observation and keen per- 
ception. Besides, to most people, whether or not their 
sympathy be universal, so far as the individual is concern- 
ed, any deep affection generally lends eyes, tact, and deli- 
cacy. 

Thus when, on the Monday morning at breakfast, Miss 
Selina observed “ what a fine day Mr. Lyon was having for 
his journey; what a lucky fellow he was; how he would 
be sure to make a fortune, and if so, she wondered whether 
they should ever see or hear any thing of him again” — 
Elizabeth, from the glimpse she caught of Miss Hilary’s 
face, and from the quiet way in which Miss Leaf merely 
answered, “ Time will show,” and began talking to Selina 
about some other subject — Elizabeth resolved never in any 
way to make the smallest allusion to Mr. Robert Lyon. 
Something had happened, she did not know what, and it 
was not her business to find out ; the family affairs, so far 
as she was trusted with them, were warmly her own, but 
into the family secrets she had no right to pry. 

Yet, long after Miss Selina had ceased to “ wonder” about 
him, or even to name him — his presence or absence did not 
touch her personally, and she was always the centre of her 
own small world of interest — the little maid-servant kept 
in her mind, and pondered over at odd times every possi- 
ble solution of the mystery of this gentleman’s sudden vis- 
it; of the long, wet Sunday when he sat all day talking 
with her mistresses in the parlor ; of the evening prayer, 
when Miss Leaf had twice to stop, her voice faltered so ; 
and of the night when, long after all the others had gone 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


75 


to bed, Elizabeth, coming suddenly into the parlor, had 
found Miss Hilary sitting alone over the embers of the fire, 
with the saddest, saddest look ! so that the girl had softly 
shut the door again without ever speaking to “ missis.” 

Elizabeth did more, which, strange as it may appear, a 
servant who is supposed to know nothing of any thing 
that has happened can often do better than a member of 
the family who knows every thing, and this knowledge is 
sometimes the most irritating consciousness a sufferer has. 
She followed her young mistress with a steady watchful- 
ness, so quiet and silent that Hilary never found it out — 
saved her every little household care, gave her every little 
household treat. Not much to do, and less to be chroni- 
cled ; but the way in which she did it was all. 

During the long, dull winter days, to come in and find 
the parlor fire always bright, the hearth clean swept, and 
the room tidy ; never to enter the kitchen without the serv- 
ant’s face clearing up into a smile ; when her restless irri- 
tability made her forget things and grow quite vexed in 
the search after them, to see that somehow her shoes were 
never misplaced, and her gloves always came to hand in 
some mysterious manner — these trifles, in her first heavy 
days of darkness, soothed Hilary more than words could 
tell. 

And the sight of Miss Hilary going about the house and 
school-room as usual, with that poor white face of hers ; 
nay, gradually bringing to the family fireside, as usual, her 
harmless little joke, and her merry laugh at it and herself 
— who shall say what lessons may not have been taught 
by this to the humble servant, dropping deep-sown into 
her heart, to germinate and fructify, as her future life’s 
needs required ? 

It might have been so — God knows ! He alone can know, 
who, through what (to us) seem the infinite littlenesses of 
our mortal existence, is educating us into the infinite great- 
ness of his and our immortality. 




76 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


CHAPTER Vn. 

Autumn soon lapsed into winter ; Christmas came and 
went, bringing, not Ascott, as they hoped and he had prom- 
ised, but a very serious evil in the shape of sundry bills of 
his, which, he confessed in a most piteous letter to his Aunt 
Hilary, were absolutely unpayable out of his godfather’s 
allowance. They were not large — or would not have seem- 
ed so to rich people — and they were for no more blamable 
luxuries than horse-hire, and a dinner or two to friends out 
in the country; but they looked serious to a household 
which rarely was more than five pounds beforehand with 
the world. 

He had begged Aunt Hilary to keep his secret, but that 
was evidently impossible ; so, on the day the school - ac- 
counts were being written out and sent in, and their amount 
anxiously reckoned, she laid before her sisters the lad’s let- 
ter, full of penitence and promises : 

“ I will be careful — I will indeed— if you will help me 
this once, dear Aunt Hilary ; and don’t think too ill of me. 
I have done nothing wicked. And you don’t know London 
— you don’t know, with a lot of young fellows about one, 
how very hard it is to say no.” 

At that unluckly postscript the Misses Leaf sorrowfully 
exchanged looks. Little the lad thought about it — but 
these few words were the very sharpest pang Ascott had 
ever given to his aunts. 

“ What’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh.” 
“ Like father, like son.” “ The sins of the parents shall be 
visited on the children.” So runs many a proverb ; so con- 
firms the unerring decree of a just God, who would not be 
a just God did he allow himself to break his own righteous 
laws for the government of the universe ; did he falsify the 
requirements of his own holy and pure being by permitting 
any other wages for sin than death. And though, through 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


' 11 

his mercy, sin forsaken escapes sin’s penalty, and every hu- 
man being has it in his power to modify, if not to conquer, 
any hereditary moral as well as physical disease, thereby 
avoiding the doom and alleviating the curse, still the orig- 
inal law remains in force, and ought to remain, an example 
and a warning. As true as that every individual sin which 
a man commits breeds multitudes more, is it that every in- 
dividual sinner may transmit his own peculiar type of weak- 
ness or wickedness to a whole race, disappearing in one gen- 
eration, reappearing in another, exactly the same as phys- 
ical peculiarities do, requiring the utmost caution of educa- 
tion to counteract the terrible tendencies of nature — the 
“ something in the blood” which is so difficult to eradicate ; 
which may even make the third and fourth generations ex- 
ecrate the memory of him or her who was its origin. 

The long life-curse of Henry Leaf the elder, and Henry 
Leaf the younger, had been — the women of the family well 
knew — that they were men “ who couldn’t say No,” So 
keenly were the three sisters alive to this fault — it could 
hardly be called a crime, and yet, in its consequences, it 
was so — so sickening the terror of it which their own 
wretched experience had implanted in their minds, that 
during Ascott’s childhood and youth his very fractiousness 
and roughness, his little selfishness, and his persistence in 
his own will against theirs, had been hailed by his aunts as 
a good omen that he would grow up “ so unlike his poor 
father.” 

If the two unhappy Henry Leafs — father and son — could 
have come out of their graves that night and beheld these 
three women, daughters and sisters, sitting with Ascott’s 
letter on the table, planning how the household’s small 
expenses could be contracted, its still smaller luxuries re- 
linquished, in order that the boy might honorably pay for 
pleasures he might so easily have done without ! If they 
could have seen the weight of apprehension which then 
sank like a stone on these long-tried hearts, never to be aft- 
erward quite removed ; lightened sometimes, but always — 
however Ascott might promise and amend — always there] 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


78 

On such a discovery, surely, these two “ poor ghosts” would 
have fled away moaning, wishing they had died childless, 
or that during their mortal lives any amount of self-re- 
straint and self-compulsion had purged from their natures 
the accursed thing — the sin which had worked itself out 
in sorrow upon every one belonging to them years after 
their own heads were laid in the quiet dust. 

“We must do it,” was the conclusion the Misses Leaf 
unanimously came to — even Selina, who, w T ith all her faults, 
had a fair share of good feeling and of that close clinging 
to kindred which is found in fallen households, or house- 
holds whom the sacred bond of common poverty has drawn 
together in a way that large, well-to-do home circles can 
never quite understand. “We must not let the boy re- 
main in debt ; it would be such a disgrace to the family.” 

“ It is not the remaining in debt, but the incurring of it, 
which is the real disgrace to Ascott and the family.” 

“ Hush, Hilary !” said Johanna, pointing to the opening 
door ; but it was too late. 

Elizabeth, coming suddenly in — or else the ladies had 
been so engrossed with their conversation that they had 
not noticed her — had evidently heard every word of the 
last sentence. Her conscious face showed it — more espe- 
cially the bright scarlet which covered both her cheeks 
when Miss Leaf said “ Hush !” She stood, apparently ir- 
resolute as to whether she should run away again; and 
then her native honesty got the upper hand, and she ad- 
vanced into the room. 

“ If you please, missis, I didn’t mean to — but I’ve 
heard — ” 

“ What have you heard — that is, how much ?” 

“Just what Miss Hilary said. Don’t be afeared. I 
sha’n’t tell. I never chatter about the family. Mother 
told me not.” 

“You owe a great deal, Elizabeth, to your good mother. 
How go away.” 

“And another time,” said Miss Selina, “knock at the 
door,” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


19 


This was Elizabeth’s first initiation into what many a 
servant has to share — the secret burden of the family. 
After that day, though they did not actually confide in 
her, her mistresses used no effort to conceal that they had 
cares ; that the domestic economies must, this winter, be 
especially studied ; there must be no extra fires, no can- 
dles left burning to waste ; and, once a week or so, a few 
butterless breakfasts or meatless dinners must be partaken 
of cheerfully in both parlor and kitchen. The Misses Leaf 
never stinted their servant in any thing in which they did 
not stint themselves. 

Strange to say, in spite of Miss Selina’s prophecies, the 
girl’s respectful conduct did not abate ; on the contrary, it 
seemed to increase. The nearer she was lifted to her mis- 
tresses’ level, the more her mind grew, so that she could 
better understand her mistresses’ cares, and the deeper be- 
came her consciousness of the only thing which gives one 
human being any real authority over another — personal 
character. 

Therefore, though the family means were narrowed, and 
the family luxuries few, Elizabeth cheerfully put up with 
all ; she even felt a sort of pride in wasting nothing and 
in making the best of every thing, as the others did. Per- 
haps, it may be said, she was an exceptional servant ; and 
yet I would not do her class the wrong to believe so — I 
would rather believe that there are many such among it; 
many good, honest, faithful girls, who only need good mis- 
tresses unto whom to be honest and faithful, and they 
would be no less so than Elizabeth Hand. 

The months went by — heavy and anxious months ; for 
the school gradually dwindled away, and Ascott’s letter — 
now almost the only connection his aunts had with the 
outer world, for poverty necessarily diminished even their 
small Stowbury society — became more and more unsatis- 
factory; and the want of information in them was not sup- 
plied by those other letters, which had once kept Johanna’s 
heart easy concerning the boy. 

Mr. Lyon had written once before sailing, nay, after sail* 


80 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


in g, for he had sent it home by the pilot from the English 
Channel ; then there was, of course, silence. October, No- 
vember, December, January, February, March — how often 
did Hilary count the months, and wonder how soon a let- 
ter could come— whether a letter ever would come again. 
And sometimes— the sharp present stinging her with its 
small daily pains, the future looking dark before her and 
them all— she felt so forlorn, so forsaken, that but for a 
certain tiny well-spring of hope, which rarely dries up till 
long after three-and-twenty, she could have sat down and 
sighed, “ My good days are done.” 

Rich people break their hearts much sooner than poor 
people ; that is, they more easily get into that morbid 
state which is glorified by the term “a broken heart.” 
Poor people can not afford it. Their constant labor “ phys- 
ics pain.” Their few and narrow pleasures seldom pall. 
Holy poverty ! black as its dark side is, it has its bright 
side too, that is, when it is honest, fearless, free from self- 
ishness, wastefulnesses, and bickerings; above all, free from 
the terror of debt. 

“We’ll starve — we’ll go into the workhouse rather than 
we’ll go into debt !” cried Hilary once, in a passion of tears, 
when she was in sore want of a shawl, and Selina urged 
her to get it, and wait till she could pay for it. “ Yes ; 
the workhouse ! It would be less shame to be honorably 
indebted to the laws of the land than to be meanly indebt- 
ed, under false pretenses, to any individual in it.” 

And when, in payment for some accidental lessons, she 
got next month enough money to buy a shawl, and a bon- 
net too — nay, by great ingenuity, another bonnet for Jo- 
hanna — Hilary could have danced and sang — sang, in the 
gladness and relief of her heart, the glorious euthanasia of 
poverty. 

But these things happened only occasionally ; the daily 
life was hard still — ay, very hard, even though at last 
came the letter from “ foreign parts and following it, at 
regular intervals, other letters. They were full of facts 
rather than feelings — simple, straightforward ; worth little 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


81 


as literary compositions; school-master and learned man 
as he was, there was nothing literary or poetical about Mr. 
Lyon ; but what he wrote was like what he spoke, the ac- 
curate reflection of his own clear, original mind, and hon- 
est, tender heart. 

His letters gave none the less comfort because, nominal- 
ly, they were addressed to Johanna. This might have 
been from some crotchet of over-reserve, or delicacy, or 
honor — the same which made him part from her for years 
with no other word than “ You must trust me, Hilary 
but, whatever it was, she respected it, and she did trust 
him. And whether Johanna answered his letters or not, 
month by month they unfailingly came, keeping her com- 
pletely informed of all his proceedings, and letting out, as 
epistles written from over the seas often do, much more of 
himself and his character than he was probably aware that 
he betrayed. 

And Hilary, whose sole experience of mankind had been 
the scarcely remembered father, the too well remembered 
brother, and the anxiously watched nephew, thanked God 
that there seemed to be one man in the world whom a 
woman could lean her heart upon, and not feel the support 
break like a reed beneath her — one man whom she could 
entirely believe in, and safely and sacredly trust. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Time slipped by. Robert Lyon had been away more 
than three years. But in the monotonous life of the three 
sisters at Stowbury nothing was changed — except, per- 
haps, Elizabeth, who had grown quite a woman ; might 
have passed almost for thirty, so solidly old-fashioned were 
her figure and her manners. 

Ascott Leaf had finished his walking the hospitals and 
his examinations, and was now fitted to commence prac- 
tice for himself. His godfather had still continued his al- 
lowance, though once or twice, when he came down to 


82 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Stowbury, he had asked his aunts to help him in some 
small debts — the last time in one a little more serious; 
when, after some sad and sore consultation, it had been re- 
solved to tell him he must contrive to live within his own 
allowance. For they were poorer than they used to be ; 
many more schools had arisen in the town, and theirs had 
dwindled away. It was becoming a source of serious anx- 
iety whether they could possibly make ends meet; and 
when, the next Christmas, Ascott sent them a five-pound 
note — an actual five-pound note, together with a fond, 
grateful letter that was worth it all, the aunts were deep- 
ly thankful, and very happy. 

But still the school declined. One night they were spec- 
ulating upon the causes of this, and Hilary was declaring, 
in a half jocular, half earnest way, that it must be because 
a prophet is never a prophet in his own country. 

“The Stowbury people will never believe how clever I 
am. Only it is a useless sort of cleverness, I fear. Greek, 
Latin, and mathematics are no good to infants under sev- 
en, such as Stowbury persists in sending to us.” 

“ They think I am only fit to teach little children — and 
perhaps it is true,” said Miss Leaf. 

“I wish you had not to teach at all. I wish I was a 
daily governess — I might be, and earn enough to keep the 
whole family; only, not here.” 

“I wonder,” said Johanna, thoughtfully, “if we shall 
have to make a change !” 

“ A change !” It almost pained the elder sister to see 
how the younger brightened up at the word. “ Where to 
— London ? Oh, I have so longed to go and live in Lon- 
don ! But I thought you would not like it, Johanna.” 

That was true. Miss Leaf, whom feeble health had 
made prematurely old, would willingly have ended her 
days in the familiar town; but Hilary was young and 
strong. Johanna called to mind the days when she too 
had felt that rest was only another name for dullness, and 
when the most difficult thing possible to her was what 
seemed now so easy — to sit down and endure. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


83 


Besides, unlike herself, Hilary had her life all before her. 
It might be a happy life, safe in a good man’s tender keep- 
ing ; those unfailing letters from India seemed to prophesy 
that it would. But no one could say. Miss Leaf’s own 
experience had not led her to place much faith in either 
men or happiness. 

Still, whatever Hilary’s future might be, it would likely 
be a very different one from that quiet, colorless life of 
hers. And as she looked at her young sister, with the twi- 
light glow on her face — they were taking an evening stroll 
up and down the terrace — Johanna hoped and prayed it 
might be so. Her own lot seemed easy enough for herself ; 
but for Hilary — she would like to see Hilary something 
better than a poor school-mistress at Stowbury. 

No more was said at that time, but Johanna had the 
deep, still, Mary-like nature which “kept” things, and 
“ pondered them in her heart so that when the subject 
came up again she was able to meet it with that sweet 
calmness which was her especial characteristic — the unruf- 
fled peace of a soul which no worldly storms could disturb 
overmuch, for it had long since cast anchor in the world 
unseen. 

The chance which revived the question of the Great 
Metropolitan Hegira, as Hilary called it, was a letter from 
Mr. Ascott, as follows : 

“ Miss Leaf : 

“ Madam, — I shall be obliged by your informing me if it 
is your wish, as it seems to be your nephew’s, that, instead 
of returning to Stowbury, he should settle in London as a 
surgeon and general practitioner ? 

“ His education complete, I consider that I have done 
my duty by him ; but I may assist him occasionally still, 
unless he turns out — as his father did before him — a young 
man who prefers being helped to helping himself, in which 
case I shall have nothing more to do with him. 

“ I remain, madam, your obedient servant, 

“ Peter Ascott.” 

The sisters read this letter, passing it round the table, 


84 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


none of them apparently liking to be the first to comment 
upon it. At length Hilary said, “ I think that reference to 
poor Henry is perfectly brutal.” 

“ And yet he was very kind to Henry. And if it had 
not been for his common sense in sending poor little Ascott 
and the nurse down to Stowbury, the baby might have 
died. But you don’t remember any thing of that time, my 
dear,” said Johanna, sighing. 

“ He has been kind enough, though he has done it in 
such a patronizing way,” observed Selina. “I suppose 
that’s the real reason of his doing it. He thinks it fine to 
patronize us, and show kindness to our family; he, the 
stout, bullet-headed grocer’s boy, who used to sit and stare 
at us all church-time.” 

“ At you, you mean. Wasn’t he called your beau ?” said 
Hilary, mischievously, upon which Selina drew herself up 
in great indignation. 

And then they fell to talking of that anxious question — * 
Ascott’s future. A little they reproached themselves that 
they had left the lad so long in London — so long out of the 
influence that might have counteracted the evil, sharply 
hinted in his godfather’s letter. But once away, to lure 
him back to their poor home was impossible. 

“ Suppose we were to go to him,” suggested Hilary. 

The poor and friendless possess one great advantage — 
they have nobody to ask advice of; nobody to whom it 
matters much what they do or where they go. The family 
mind has but to make itself up, and act accordingly. Thus, 
within an hour or two of the receipt of Mr. Ascott’s letter, 
Hilary went into the kitchen, and told Elizabeth that as 
soon as her work was done Miss Leaf wished to have a lit- 
tle talk with her. 

“Eh! what’s wrong? Has Miss Selina been a-grum- 
bling at me ?” 

Elizabeth was in one of her old humors, which, though 
of course they never ought to have, servants do have as 
well as their superiors. Hilary perceived this by the way 
she threw the coals on, and tossed the chairs about. Bu+ 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


85 


to-day her heart was far more full of serious cares than 
Elizabeth’s ill temper. She replied, composedly, 

“I have not heard that either of my sisters is displeased 
with you. What they want to talk to you about is for 
your own good. We are thinking of making a great 
change. We intend leaving Stowbury and going to live 
in London.” 

“ Going to live in London !” 

Now, quick as her tact and observation were — her heart 
taught her these things — Elizabeth’s head was a thorough 
Saxon one, slow to receive impressions. It was a family 
saying that nothing was so hard as to put a new idea into 
Elizabeth except to get it out again. 

For this reason Hilary preferred paving the way quiet- 
ly before startling her with the sudden intelligence of 
their contemplated change. 

“Well, what do you say to the plan?” asked she, good- 
humoredly^ 

“ I dunnot like it at all,” was the brief, gruff answer of 
Elizabeth Hand. 

Now it was one of Miss Hilary’s doctrines that no hu- 
man being is good for much unless he or she has what is 
called “ a will of one’s own.” Perhaps this, like many an- 
other creed, was with her the result of circumstances. But 
she held it firmly, and with that exaggerated one-sidedness 
of feeling which any bitter family or personal experience 
is sure to leave behind — a strong will was her first attrac- 
tion to every body. It had been so in the case of Robert 
Lyon, and not less in Elizabeth’s. 

But this quality has its inconveniences. When the 
maid began sweeping up her hearth with a noisy, angry 
gesture, the mistress did the wisest and most dignified 
thing a mistress could do under the circumstances, and 
which she knew was the sharpest rebuke she could admin- 
ister to the sensitive Elizabeth — she immediately quitted 
the kitchen. 

For an hour after the parlor-bell did not ring; and 
though it was washing-day, no Miss Hilary appeared to 


86 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


help in folding up the clothes. Elizabeth, subdued and 
wretched, waited till she could wait no longer, then knock- 
ed at the door, and asked humbly if she could bring in 
supper. 

The extreme kindness of the answer — to the effect that 
she must come in, as they wanted to speak to her, crushed 
the lingering fragments of ill humor out of the girl. 

“ Miss Hilary has told you our future plans, Elizabeth ; 
now we wish to have a little talk with you about yours.” 

“ Eh ?” 

“We conclude you will not wish to go with us to Lon- 
don, and it would be hardly advisable you should. You 
can get higher wages now than any we can afford to give 
you ; indeed, we have more than once thought of telling 
you so, and offering you your choice of trying for a better 
place.” 

“ You’re very kind,” was the answer, stolid rather than 
grateful. 

“No; I think we are merely honest. We should never 
think of keeping a girl upon lower wages than she was 
worth. Hitherto, however, the arrangement has been quite 
fair ; you know, Elizabeth, you have given us a deal of 
trouble in the teaching of you.” And Miss Leaf smiled, 
half sadly, as if this, the first of the coming changes, hurt 
her more than she liked to express. “ Come, my girl,” she 
added, “you needn’t look so serious. We are not in the 
least vexed with you ; we shall be very sorry to lose you, 
and we will give you the best of characters when you 
leave.” 

“ I dunnot — mean — to leave.” 

Elizabeth threw out the words like pellets, in a choked 
fashion, and disappeared suddenly from the parlor. 

“Who would have thought it!” exclaimed Selina; “I 
declare the girl was crying.” 

No mistake about that; though when, a few minutes 
after, Miss Hilary entered the kitchen, Elizabeth tried in a 
hurried, shamefaced way to hide her tears by being very 
busy over something. Her mistress took no notice, but 


mistress ANi> Maid. 


87 


began, as usual on washing-days, to assist in various do- 
mestic matters, in the midst of which she said, quietly, 

“ And so, Elizabeth, you would really like to go to Lon- 
don?” 

“ No, I shouldn’t like it at all — never said I should. But 
if you go, I shall go too — though missis is so ready to get 
shut o’ me.” 

“ It was for your own good, you know.” 

“ You always said it was for a girl’s good to stop in one 
place ; and if you think I am going to another — I aren’t, 
that’s all.” 

Rude as the form of the speech was — almost the first 
rude speech that Elizabeth had ever made to Miss Hilary, 
and which, under other circumstances, she would have felt 
bound severely to reprove — the mistress passed it over. 
That which lay beneath it, the sharpness of wounded love, 
touched her heart. She felt that, for all the girl’s rough 
manner, it would have been hard to go into her London 
kitchen and meet a strange London face, instead of that 
fond, homely one of Elizabeth Hand’s. 

Still, she thought it right to explain to her that London 
life might have many difficulties ; that, for the present at 
least, her wages could not be raised, and the family might 
at first be in even more straitened circumstances than they 
were at Stowbury. 

“ Only at first, though, for I hope to find plenty of pu- 
pils. And by-and-by our nephew will get into practice.” 

“ Is it on account of him you’re going, Miss Hilary ?” 

“ Chiefly.” 

Elizabeth gave a grunt, which said as plainly as words 
could say, “ I thought so and relapsed into what she, no 
doubt, believed to be virtuous indignation, but which, as it 
was testified against the wrong parties, was open to the 
less favorable interpretation of ill humor — a small injustice 
not uncommon with us all. 

I do not pretend to paint this young woman as a perfect 
character. She had her fierce dislikes as well as her strong 
fidelities ; her faults within and without, which had to ba 


88 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


struggled with, as all of us have to struggle to the very 
end of our days. Oftentimes not till the battle is nigh 
over — sometimes not till it is quite over — does God give 
us the victory ? 

Without more discussion on either side, it was agreed 
that Elizabeth should accompany her mistresses. Even 
Mrs. Hand seemed to be pleased thereat, her only doubt 
being lest her daughter should meet and be led astray by 
that bad woman Mrs. Clifie, Tommy Cliffe’s mother, who 
was reported to have gone to London. But Miss Hilary 
explained that this meeting was about as probable as the 
rencontre of two needles in a hay-rick ; and, besides, Eliza- 
beth was not the sort of girl to be easily “ led astray” by 
any body. 

“No, no; her’s a good wench, though I says it,” replied 
the mother, who was too hard worked to have much senti- 
ment to spare. “ I wish the little ’uns may take pattern 
by our Elizabeth. You’ll send her home, maybe, in two 
or three years’ time, to let us have a look at her ?” 

Miss Hilary promised, and then took her way back 
through the familiar old town — so soon to be familiar no 
more — thinking anxiously, in spite of herself, upon those 
two or three years, and what they might bring. 

It happened to be a notable day — that sunshiny 28 th of 
June — when the little round - cheeked damsel, who is a 
grandmother now, had the crown of three kingdoms first 
set upon her youthful head, and Stowbury, like every oth- 
er town in the land, was a perfect bowser of green arches, 
garlands, banners ; white-covered tables were spread in the 
open air down almost every street, where poor men dined, 
or poor women drank tea; and every body was out and 
abroad, looking at or sharing in the holiday-making, wild 
with merriment, and brimming over with passionate loyal- 
ty to the Maiden Queen. 

That day is now twenty-four years ago ; but all those 
who remember it must own there never has been a day 
like it, when, all over the country, every man’s heart throb- 
bed with chivalrous devotion, every woman’s with worn- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


89 


anly tenderness, toward this one royal girl, who — God bless 
her ! — has lived to retain and deserve it all. 

Hilary called for, and protected through the crowd the 
little, timid widow lady who had taken off the Misses 
Leaf’s hands their house and furniture, and whom they had 
made very happy — as the poor often can make those still 
poorer than themselves — by refusing to accept any thing 
for the “ good-will” of the school. Then she was fetched 
by Elizabeth, who had been given a whole afternoon’s hol- 
iday ; and mistress and maid went together home, watch- 
ing the last of the festivities, the chattering groups that 
still lingered in the twilight streets, and listening to the 
merry notes of the “Triumph” which came down through 
the lighted windows of the Town Hall, where the open-air 
tea-drinkers had adjourned to dance country dances, by 
civic permission, and in perfectly respectable jollity. 

“I winder,” said Hilary — while, despite some natural 
regret, her spirit stretched itself out eagerly from the nar- 
rowness of the place where she was born into the great 
wide world ; the world where so many grand things were 
thought, and written, and done; the world Robert Lyon 
had so long fought with, and was fighting bravely still — 
“ I wonder, Elizabeth, what sort of place London is, and 
what our life will be in it ?” 

Elizabeth said nothing. For the moment her face seem- 
ed to catch the reflected glow of her mistress’s, and then 
it settled down into that look of mingled resistance and 
resolution which was habitual to her. For the life that 
was to be, which neither knew — oh, if they had known !■— 
she also was prepared. 


CHAPTER IX. 

The day of the grand hegira came. 

“ I remember,” said Miss Leaf, as they rumbled for the 
last time through the empty morning streets of poor old 
Stowbury — “ I remember my grandmother telling me that 


90 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


when my grandfather was courting her, and she out of co- 
quetry refused him, he set off on horseback to London, and 
she was so wretched to think of all the dangers he ran on 
the journey, and in London itself, that she never rested till 
she got him back, and then immediately married him.” 

“No such catastrophe is likely to happen to any of us, 
except, perhaps, to Elizabeth,” said Miss Hilary, trying to 
get up a little feeble mirth, any thing to pass away the 
time and lessen the pain of parting, which was almost too 
much for Johanna. “What do you say? Do you mean 
to get married in London, Elizabeth ?” 

But Elizabeth could make no answer, even to kind Miss 
Hilary. They had not imagined she felt the leaving her 
native place so much. She had watched intently the last 
glimpse of Stowbury church tower, and now sat with red- 
dened eyes, staring blankly out of the carriage window, 

“ Silent as a stone.” 

Once or twice a large slow tear gathered on each of her 
eyes, but it was shaken off angrily from the high cheek- 
bones, and never settled into absolute crying. They 
thought it best to take no notice of her. Only, when reach- 
ing the new small station, where the “ resonant steam-ea- 
gles” were, for the first time, beheld by the innocent Stow- 
bury ladies, there arose a discussion as to the manner of 
traveling. Miss Leaf said decidedly, “ Second-class ; and 
then we can keep Elizabeth with us.” Upon which Eliza- 
beth’s mouth melted into something between a quiver and 
a smile. 

Soon it was all over, and the little household was com- 
pressed into the humble second-class carriage, cheerless 
and cushionless, whirling through indefinite England in a 
way that confounded all their geography and topography. 
Gradually, as the day darkened into heavy, chilly July 
rain, the scarcely kept-up spirits of the four passengers be- 
gan to sink. J ohanna grew very white and worn ; Selina 
became, to use Ascott’s phrase, “ as cross as two sticks ;” 
and even Hilary, turning her eyes from the gray, sodden- 


MISTRESS AKD MAID. 


01 


looking landscape without, could find no spot of comfort to 
rest on within the carriage except that round rosy face of 
Elizabeth Hand’s. 

Whether it was from the spirit of contradiction existing 
in most such natures, which, especially in youth, are more 
strong than sweet, or from a better feeling, the fact was 
noticeable, that when every one else’s spirits went down 
Elizabeth’s went up. Nothing could bring her out of a 
“ grumpy” fit so satisfactorily as her mistresses falling into 
one. When Miss Selina now began to fidget hither and 
thither, each tone of her fretful voice seeming to go 
through her eldest sister’s every nerve, till even Hilary 
said, impatiently, “ Oh, Selina, can’t you be quiet ?” then 
Elizabeth rose from her depth of gloomy discontent up to 
the surface immediately. 

She was only a servant ; but Nature bestows that strange 
vague thing that we term “ force of character” independ- 
ently of position. Hilary often remembered afterward how 
much more comfortable the end of the journey was than 
she had expected — how Johanna lay at ease, with her feet 
on Elizabeth’s lap, wrapped in Elizabeth’s best woolen 
shawl ; and how, when Selina’s whole attention was turn- 
ed to an ingenious contrivance with a towel, and fork, and 
Elizabeth’s basket, for stopping the rain out of the car- 
riage-roof— she became far less disagreeable, and even a 
little proud of her own cleverness. And so there was a 
temporary lull in Hilary’s cares, and she could sit quiet, 
with her eyes fixed on the rainy landscape, which she did 
not see, and her thoughts wandering toward that unknown 
place and unknown life into which they were sweeping, as 
we all sweep, ignorantly, unresistingly, almost unconscious- 
ly, into new destinies. Hilary, for the first time, began to 
think of theirs. Anxious as she had been to go to London, 
and wise as the proceeding appeared, now that the die was 
cast and the cable cut, the old, simple, peaceful life at Stow- 
bury grew strangely dear. 

“ J wonder if we shall ever go back again, or what is to 
happen to us before we do go back,” she thought, and 


92 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


turned, with a half-defined fear, toward her eldest sister, 
who looked so old and fragile beside that sturdy, healthy 
servant-girl. “ Elizabeth !” Elizabeth, rubbing Miss Leaf’s 
feet, started at the unwonted sharpness of Miss Hilary’s 
tone. “ There ; I’ll do that for my sister. Go and look 
out of the window at London.” 

For the great smoky cloud which began to rise in the 
rainy horizon was indeed London. Soon through the thick- 
ening nebula of houses they converged to what was then 
the nucleus of all railway traveling, the Euston Terminus, 
and were hustled on to the platform, and jostled helplessly 
to and fro — these poor country ladies ! Anxiously they 
scanned the crowd of strange faces for the one only face 
they knew in the great metropolis — which did not appear. 

“ It is very strange — very wrong of Ascott. Hilary, you 
surely told him the hour correctly. For once, at least, he 
might have been in time.” 

So chafed Miss Selina, while Elizabeth, who, by some mi- 
raculous effort of intuitive genius, had succeeded in collect- 
ing the luggage, was now engaged in defending it from all 
comers, especially porters, and making of it a comfortable 
seat for Miss Leaf. 

“Nay, have patience, Selina. We will give him just 
five minutes more, Hilary.” 

And Johanna sat down, with her sweet, calm, long-suffer- 
ing face turned upward to that younger one, which was, as 
youth is apt to be, hot, and worried, and angry. And so 
they waited till the terminus was almost deserted, and the 
last cab had driven off, when, suddenly, dashing up the 
station-yard out of another, came Ascott. 

He was so sorry, so very sorry, downright grieved, at 
having kept his aunts waiting. But his watch was wrong 
— some fellows at dinner detained him — the train was be- 
fore its time, surely. In fact, his aunts never quite made 
out what the excuse was ; but they looked into his bright, 
handsome face, and their wrath melted like clouds before 
the sun. He was so gentlemanly, so well dressed — much 
better dressed than even at Stowbury, and he seemed so 


MISTRESS AXD MAID. 


93 


unfeignedly glad to see them. He handed them all into 
the cab — even Elizabeth, though whispering meanwhile to 
his Aunt Hilary, “ What on earth did you bring her for ?* 
— and then was just going to leap on to the box himself, 
when he stopped to ask “ Where he should tell cabby to 
drive to?” 

“ Where to ?” repeated his aunts, in undisguised aston- 
ishment. They had never thought of any thing but of be- 
ing taken home at once by their boy. 

“You see,” Ascott said, in a little confusion, “you 
wouldn’t be comfortable with me. A young fellow’s lodg- 
ings are not like a house of one’s own, and, besides — ” 

“Besides, when a young fellow is ashamed of his old 
aunts, he can easily find reasons.” 

“ Hush, Selina !” interposed Miss Leaf. “ My dear boy, 
your old aunts would never let you inconvenience your- 
self for them. Take us to an inn for the night, and to- 
morrow we will find lodgings for ourselves.” 

Ascott looked greatly relieved. 

“And you are not vexed with me, Aunt Johanna ?” said 
he, with something of his old childish tone of compunction, 
as he saw — he could not help seeing — the utter weariness 
which Johanna tried so hard to hide. 

“No, my dear, not vexed. Only I wish we had known 
this a little sooner, that we might have made arrange- 
ments. Now, where shall we go?” 

Ascott mentioned a dozen hotels, but they found he only 
knew them by name. At last Miss Leaf remembered one 
which her father used to go to on his frequent journeys to 
London, and whence, indeed, he had been brought home to 
die. And though all the recollections about it were sad 
enough, still it felt less strange than the rest in this dreari- 
ness of London. So she proposed going to the “ Old Bell,” 
Holborn. 

“ A capital place !” exclaimed Ascott, eagerly. “ And 
I’ll take and settle you there ; and we’ll order supper, and 
make a jolly night of it. All right. Drive on, cabby !” 

He jumped on the box, and then looked in mischievous- 


94 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ly, flourishing his lit cigar, and shaking his long hair — his 
aunt Selina’s two great abominations — right in her indig- 
nant face, but withal looking so merry and good-tempered 
that she shortly softened into a smile. 

“ How handsome the boy is growing !” 

“ Yes,” said Johanna, with a sigh ; “ and, did you notice ? 
how exceedingly like his — ” 

The sentence was left unfinished. Alas ! if every young 
man who believes his faults and follies injure himself alone 
could feel what it must be, years afterward, to have his 
nearest kindred shrink from saying, as the saddest, most 
ominous thing they could say of his son, that the lad is 
growing “ so like his father !” 

It might have been — they assured each other that it was 
— only the incessant roll, roll of the street sounds below 
their windows which kept the Misses Leaf awake half the 
night of this their first night in London. And when they 
sat down to breakfast — having waited an hour vainly for 
their nephew — it might have been only the gloom of the 
little parlor which cast a slight shadow over them all. 
Still the shadow was there. 

It deepened, despite the sunshiny morning into which 
the last night’s rain had brightened until Holborn Bars 
looked cheerful, and Holborn pavement actually clean, so 
that, as Elizabeth said, “ you might eat your dinner off it,” 
which was the one only thing she condescended to approve 
in London. She had sat all evening mute in her corner, 
for Miss Leaf would not send her away into the terra in- 
cognita of a London hotel. Ascott, at first considerably 
annoyed at the presence of what he called a “ skeleton at 
the feast,” had afterward got over it, and run on with a 
mixture of childish glee and mannish pomposity about his 
plans and intentions : how he meant to take a house, he 
thought, in one of the squares, or a street leading out of 
them ; how he would put up the biggest of brass plates, 
with “ Mr. Leaf, surgeon,” and soon get an extensive prac- 
tice, and have all his aunts to live with him. And his 
aunts had smiled and listened, forgetting all about the si- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


95 


lent figure in the corner, who, perhaps, had gone to sleep, 
or had also listened. 

“ Elizabeth, come and look out at London.” 

So she and Miss Hilary whiled away another heavy 
three quarters of an hour in watching and commenting on 
the incessantly shifting crowd which swept past Holborn 
Bars. Miss Selina sometimes looked out too, but more 
often sat fidgeting, and wondering why Ascott did not 
come ; while Miss Leaf, who never fidgeted, became gradu- 
ally more and more silent. Iler eyes were fixed on the 
door with an expression which, if Hilary could have re- 
membered so far back, would have been to her something 
not painfully new, but still more painfully old — a look 
branded into her face by many an hour’s anxious listening 
for the footsteps that never came, or only came to bring 
distress. It was the ineffaceable token of that long, long 
struggle between affection and conscience, pity and scarce- 
ly repressible contempt, which for more than one genera- 
tion had been the appointed burden of this family — at least 
the women of it, till sometimes it seemed to hang over 
them almost like a fate. 

About noon Miss Leaf proposed calling for the hotel bill. 
Its length so alarmed the country ladies that Hilary sug- 
gested not staying to dine, but going immediately in search 
of lodgings. 

“ What, without a gentleman ! Impossible ! I always 
understood ladies could go nowhere in London without a 
gentleman !” 

“We shall come very ill off, then, Selina. But, anyhow, 
I mean to try. You know the region where, we have heard, 
lodgings are cheapest and best — that is, best for us. It can 
not be far from here. Suppose I start at once ?” 

“ What, alone ?” cried Johanna, anxiously. 

“No, dear. I’ll take the map with me, and Elizabeth. 
She is not afraid.” 

Elizabeth smiled, and rose, with that air of dogged de- 
votedness with which she would have prepared to follow 
Miss Hilary to the North Pole if necessary. So, after a 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


few minutes of arguing with Selina, who did not press her 
point overmuch, since she herself had not to commit the 
impropriety of the expedition ; after a few minutes more 
of hopeless lingering about, till even Miss Leaf said they 
had better wait no longer, mistress and maid took a fare- 
well nearly as pathetic as if they had been in reality Arc- 
tic voyagers, and plunged right into the dusty glare and 
hurrying crowd of the “ sunny side” of Holborn in July. 

A strange sensation, and yet there was something exhil- 
arating in it. The intense solitude that there is in a Lon- 
don crowd these country girls — for Miss Hilary herself 
was no more than a girl — could not as yet realize. They 
only felt the life of it ; stirring, active, incessantly moving 
life, even though it was of a kind that they knew as little 
of it as the crowd did of them. Nothing struck Hilary 
more than the self-absorbed look of passers-by; each so 
busy on his own affairs that, in spite of Selina’s alarm, for 
all notice taken of them, they might as well be walking 
among the cows and horses in Stowbury field. 

Poor old Stowbury ! They felt how far away they were 
from it when a ragged, dirty, vicious-looking girl offered 
them a moss rose-bud for “ one penny, only one penny,” 
which Elizabeth, lagging behind, bought, and found it only 
a broken-off bud stuck on to a bit of wire. 

“ That’s London ways, I suppose,” said she, severely, and 
became so misanthropic that she would hardly vouchsafe a 
glance to the handsome square they turned into, and mere- 
ly observed of the tall houses — taller than any Hilary had 
ever seen, that she “ wouldn’t fancy Tunning up and down 
them stairs.” 

But Hilary was cheerful in spite of all. She was glad to 
be in this region, which theoretically she knew by heart — • 
glad to find herself in the body where in the spirit she had 
come so many a time. The mere consciousness of this 
seemed to refresh her. She thought she would be much 
happier in London ; that in the long years to come that 
must be borne, it would be good for her to have something 
to do as well as to hope for, something to fight with as 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


97 


well as to endure. Now more than ever came pulsing in 
and out of her memory a line once repeated in her hearing, 
with an observation of how “ true” it was. And though 
originally it was applied by a man to a woman, and she 
smiled sometimes to think how “unfeminine” some people 
— Selina, for instance — would consider her turning it the 
other way, still she did so. She believed that, for woman 
as for man, that is the purest and noblest love which is the 
most self-existent, most independent of love returned, and 
which can say each to the other equally on both sides that 
the whole solemn purpose of life is, under God’s service, 

“If not to win, to feel more worthy thee.” 

Such thoughts made her step firmer and her heart light- 
er, so that she hardly noticed the distance they must have 
walked till the close London air began to oppress her, and 
the smooth glaring London pavements made her Stowbury 
feet ache sorely. 

“Are you tired, Elizabeth ? Well, we’ll rest soon. There 
must be lodgings near here. Only I can’t quite make 
out — ” 

As Miss Hilary looked up to the name of the street, the 
maid noticed what a glow came into her mistress’s face, 
pale and tired as it was. Just then a church clock struck 
the quarter hour. 

“ That must be St. Pancras. And this — yes, this is Bur- 
ton Street, Burton Crescent.” 

“ I’m sure missis wouldn’t like to live there,” observed 
Elizabeth, eying uneasily the gloomy rez-de-chaussee , fa- 
miliar to many a generation of struggling respectability, 
where, in the decadence of the season, every second house 
bore the announcement “ apartments furnished.” 

“No,” Miss Hilary replied, absently. Yet she contin- 
ued to walk up and down the whole length of the street ; 
then passed out into the dreary, deserted-looking Crescent, 
where the trees were already beginning to fade ; not, how- 
ever, into the bright autumn tint of country woods, but 
into a premature withering, ugly and sad to behold. 


98 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ I am glad he is not here — glad, glad l” thought Hilary, 
as she realized the unutterable dreariness of those years 
when Robert Lyon lived and studied in his garret from 
month’s end to month’s end — these few dusty trees being 
the sole memento of the green country life in which he had 
been brought up, and which she knew he so passionately 
loved. Now she could understand that “calenture” which 
he had sometimes jestingly alluded to, as coming upon him 
at times, when he felt literally sick for the sight of a green 
field or a hedge full of birds. She wondered whether the 
same feeling would ever come upon her in this strange des- 
ert of London, the vastness of which grew upon her every 
hour. 

She was glad he was away — yes, heart-glad ! And yet, 
if this minute she could only have seen him coming round 
the Crescent ; have met his smile, and the firm, warm clasp 
of his hand — 

For an instant there rose up in her one of those wfild, re* 
bellious outcries against fate, when to have to waste years 
of this brief life of ours in the sort of semi-existence that 
living is, apart from the treasure of the heart and delight 
of the eyes, seems so cruelly, cruelly hard ! 

“ Miss Hilary — ” 

She started, and a put herself under lock and key” im- 
mediately. 

“ Miss Hilary, you do look so tired !” 

“ Do I ? Then we will go and sit down in this baker’s 
shop, and get rested and fed. We can not afford to wear 
ourselves out, you know. We have a great deal to do to- 
day.” 

More indeed than she calculated, for they walked up one 
street and down another, investigating at least twenty 
lodgings before any appeared which seemed fit for them. 
Yet some place must be found where Johanna’s poor tired 
head could rest that night. At last, completely exhausted, 
with that oppressive exhaustion which seems to crush mind 
as well as body after a day’s wandering in London, Hilary’s 
courage began to ebb. Ob for an arm to lean on, a voice 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


99 


to listen for, a brave heart to come to her side, saying, “ Do 
not be afraid, there are two of us !” And she yearned, with 
an absolutely sick yearning such as only a woman who now 
and then feels the utter helplessness of her womanhood can 
know, for the only arm she cared to lean on, the only voice 
dear enough to bring her comfort, the only heart she felt 
she could trust. 

Poor Hilary! And yet why pity her? To her three 
alternatives could but happen : were Robert Lyon true to 
her, she would be his, entirely* and devotedly, to the end of 
her days ; did he forsake her, she would forgive him ; should 
he die, she would be faithful to him eternally. Love of this 
kind may know anguish, but not the sort of anguish that 
lesser and weaker loves do. If it is certain of nothing else, 
it can always be certain of itself. 

“ Its will is strong : 

It suffers ; but it can not suffer long. ” 

And even in its utmost pangs is an underlying peace which 
often approaches to absolute joy. 

Hilary roused herself, and bent her mind steadily on lodg- 
ings till she discovered one, from the parlor of which you 
could see the trees of Burton Crescent and hear the sound 
of Saint Pancras’s clock. 

“ I think we may do here — at least for a while,” said she, 
cheerfully ; and then Elizabeth heard her inquiring if an 
extra bedroom could be had if necessary. 

There was only one small attic. “Ascott never could 
put up with that,” said Hilary, half to herself. Then sud- 
denly — “ X think I will see Ascott before I decide. Eliza- 
beth, will you go with me, or remain here ?” 

“ I’ll go with you if you please, Miss Hilary.” 

“ If you please” sounded not unlike “ if I please,” and 
Elizabeth had gloomed over a little. “ Is Mr. Ascott to 
live with us ?” 

“I suppose so.” 

No more words were interchanged till they reached 
Gower Street, when Miss Hilary observed, with evident 
surprise, what a handsome street it was. 


100 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ I must have made some mistake. Still we will find out 
Mr. Ascott’s number, and inquire.” 

No, there was no mistake. Mr. Ascott Leaf had lodged 
there for three months, but had given up his rooms that 
very morning. 

“ Where had he gone to ?” 

The servant — a London lodging-house servant all over 
—didn’t know ; but she fetched the landlady, who was aft- 
er the same pattern of the dozen London landladies with 
whom Hilary had that day made acquaintance, only a little 
more Cockney, smirking, dirty, and tawdrily fine. 

“Yes, Mr. Leaf had gone, and he hadn’t left no address. 
Young college gentlemen often found it convenient to leave 
no address. P’raps he would if he’d known there would 
be a young lady a-calling to see him.” 

“I am Mr. Leaf’s aunt,” said Hilary, turning as hot as fire. 

“ Oh, in-deed,” was the answer, with civil incredulous- 
ness. 

But the woman was sharp of perception, as often-cheat- 
ed London landladies learn to be. After looking keenly at 
mistress and maid, she changed her tone, nay, even launch- 
ed out in praises of her late lodger : what a pleasant gen- 
tleman he was ; what good company he kept, and how he 
had promised to recommend her apartments to his friends. 

“ And as for the little some’at of rent, miss, tell him it 
makes no matter ; he can pay me when he likes. If he 
don’t call soon, p’raps I might make bold to send his trunk 
and his books over to Mr. Ascott’s of — dear me, I forget 
the number and the square.” 

Hilary unsuspiciously supplied both. 

“ Yes, that’s it — the old gen’leman as Mr. Leaf went to 
dine with every other Sunday — a very rich old gentleman, 
who, he says, is to leave him all his money. Maybe a re- 
lation of yours, miss ?” 

“No,” said Hilary; and adding something about the 
landlady’s hearing from Mr. Leaf very soon, she hurried out 
of the house, Elizabeth following. 

“Won’t you be tired if you walk so fast, Miss Hilary?” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


101 


Hilary stopped, choking. Helplessly she looked up and 
down the forlorn, wide, glaring, dusty street, now sinking 
into the dull shadow of a London afternoon. 

“ Let us go home !” And at the word a sob burst out — 
just one passionate pent-up sob. No more. She could not 
afford to waste strength in crying. 

“As you say, Elizabeth, I am getting tired, and that will 
not do. Let me see ; something must be decided.” And 
she stood still, passing her hand over her hot brow and eyes. 
“ I will go back and take the lodgings, leave you there to 
make all comfortable, and then fetch my sisters from the 
hotel. But stay first ; I have forgotten something.” 

She returned to the house in Gower Street, and wrote on 
one of her cards an address — the only permanent address 
she could think of — that of the city broker who was in the 
habit of paying them their yearly income of £ 50 . 

“If any creditors inquire for Mr. Leaf, give them this. 
His friends may always hear of him at the London Univer- 
sity.” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” replied the nov civil landlady. 
“Indeed, I wasn’t afraid of the young gentleman giving us 
the slip ; for, though he was careless in his bills, he was 
every inch the gentleman. And I wouldn’t object to take 
him in again. Or p’raps you yourself, ma’am, might be a* 
wanting rooms.” 

“No, I thank you. Good morning.” And Hilary hur- 
ried away. 

Not a word did she say to Elizabeth, or Elizabeth to 
her, till they got into the dull, dingy parlor — henceforth 
to be their sole apology for “ home and then she only 
talked about domestic arrangements — talked fast and ea- 
gerly, and tried to escape the affectionate eyes which she 
knew were so sharp and keen. Only to escape them — not 
to blind them ; she had long ago found out that Elizabeth 
was too quick-witted for that, especially in any thing that 
concerned “the family.” She felt convinced the girl had 
heard every syllable that passed at Ascott’s lodgings : that 
she knew all that was to be known, and guessed what was 
to be feared as well as Hilary herself. 


102 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“Elizabeth” — she hesitated long, and doubted whether 
she should say the thing before she did say it — “remem- 
ber we are all strangers in London, and family matters 
are best kept within the family. Do not mention either 
in writing home, or to any body here about — about — ” 
She could not name Ascott, she felt so horribly ashamed. 


CHAPTER X. 

Living in lodgings, not temporarily, but permanently, 
sitting down to make one’s only “home” in Mrs. Jones’s 
parlor or Mrs. Smith’s first-floor, of which not a stick or a 
stone that one looks at is one’s own, and whence one may 
be evicted or evade, with a week’s notice or a week’s rent, 
any day — this sort of life is natural and even delightful to 
some people. There are those who, like strawberry plants, 
are of such an errant disposition, that, grow them where 
you will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their 
habitat, and begin casting out runners elsewhere ; nay, if 
not frequently transplanted, would actually wither and die. 
Of such are the pioneers of society — the emigrants, the tour- 
ists, the travelers round the world ; and great is the advan- 
tage the world derives from them, active, energetic, and im- 
pulsive as they are — unless, indeed, their talent for inces- 
sant locomotion degenerates into rootless restlessness, and 
they remain forever rolling stones, gathering no moss, and 
acquiring gradually a smooth, hard surface, which adheres 
to nothing, and to which nobody dare venture to adhere. 

But there are others possessing in a painful degree this 
said quality of adhesiveness, to whom the smallest change 
is obnoxious ; who like drinking out of a particular cup, 
and sitting in a particular chair; to whom even a varia- 
tion in the position of furniture is unpleasant. Of course, 
this peculiarity has its bad side, and yet it is not in itself 
mean or ignoble. For is not adhesiveness, faithfulness, 
constancy — call it what you will — at the root of all citi- 
zenship, clanship, and family love ? Is it not the same feel- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


103 


mg which, granting they remain at all, makes old friend- 
ships dearer than any new? Nay, to go to the very sa- 
credest and closest bond, is it not that which makes an 
old man see to the last in his old wife’s faded face the 
beauty which perhaps nobody ever saw except himself, 
but which he sees and delights in still, simply because it 
is familiar and his own ? 

To people who possess a large share of this rare — shall 
I say fatal ? — characteristic of adhesiveness, living in lodg- 
ings is about the saddest life under the sun. Whether 
some dim foreboding of this fact crossed Elizabeth’s mind 
as she stood at the window watching for her mistresses’ 
first arrival at “ home,” it is impossible to say. She could 
feel, though she was not accustomed to analyze her feel- 
ings. But she looked dull and sad — not cross; even As- 
cott could not have accused her of “ savageness.” 

And yet she had been somewhat tried. First, in going 
out what she termed “ marketing,” she had traversed a 
waste of streets, got lost several times, and returned with 
light weight in her butter, and sand in her moist sugar; 
also with the conviction that London tradesmen were the 
greatest rogues alive. Secondly, a pottle of strawberries, 
which she had bought with her own money to grace the 
tea-table with the only fruit Miss Leaf cared for, had turn- 
ed out a large delusion, big and beautiful at top, and all 
below small, crushed, and stale. She had thrown it indig- 
nantly, pottle and all, into the kitchen fire. 

Thirdly, she had a war with the landlady, partly on the 
subject of their fire — which, with her Stowbury notions on 
the subject of coals, seemed wretchedly mean and small 
— and partly on the question of table-cloths at tea, which 
Mrs. Jones had “never heard of,” especially when the use 
of plate and linen was included in the rent. And the din- 
giness of the article produced at last out of an omnium- 
gatlierum sort of kitchen cupboard made an ominous im- 
pression upon the country girl, accustomed to clean, tidy 
country ways — where the kitchen was kept as neat as the 
parlor, and the bedrooms were not a whit behind the sitr 


104 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


ting-rooms in comfort and orderliness. Here it seemed as 
if, supposing people could show a few respectable living- 
rooms, they were content to sleep any where, and cook 
any how, out of any thing, in the midst of any quantity of 
confusion and dirt. Elizabeth set all this down as “ Lon- 
don,” and hated it accordingly. 

She had tried to ease her mind by arranging and rear- 
ranging the furniture— regular lodging-house furniture — 
table, six chairs, horse-hair sofa, a what-not, and the chif- 
fonnier, with a tea-caddy upon it, of which the respective 
keys had been solemnly presented to Miss Hilary. But 
still the parlor looked homeless and bare ; and the yellow- 
ish paper on the walls, the large-patterned, many-colored 
Kidderminster on the floor, gave an involuntary sense of 
discomfort and dreariness. Besides, No. 15 was on the 
shady side of the street — cheap lodgings always are ; and 
no one who has not lived in the like lodgings — not a house 
— can imagine what it is to inhabit perpetually one room 
where the sunshine just peeps in for an hour a day, and 
vanishes by eleven A.M., leaving behind in winter a chill 
dampness, and in summer a heavy, dusty atmosphere, that 
weighs like lead on the spirits in spite of one’s self. No 
wonder that, as is statistically known and proved, cholera 
stalks, fever rages, and the registrar’s list is always swelled 
along the shady side of a London street. 

Elizabeth felt this, though she had not the dimmest idea 
why. She stood watching the sunset light fade out of the 
topmost windows of the opposite house — ghostly reflection 
of some sunset over fields and trees far away ; and she list- 
ened to the long, monotonous cry melting away round the 
Crescent, and beginning again at the other end of the street 
— “ Straw-ber-ries — straw -ber-ries !” Also, with an eye to 
to-morrow’s Sunday dinner, she investigated the cart of 
the tired costermonger, who crawled along beside his 
equally tired donkey, reiterating at times, in tones hoarse 
with a day’s bawling, his dreary “ Cauli-flow-er ! cauli-flow- 
er ! — Fine new pease, sixpence peck !” 

But, alas ! the pease were neither fine nor new ; and the 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


105 


cauliflowers were regular Saturday night’s cauliflowers. 
Besides, Elizabeth suddenly doubted whether she had any 
right, unordered, to buy these things, which, from being 
common garden necessaries, had become luxuries. This 
thought, with some others that it occasioned, her unwonted 
state of idleness, and the dullness of every thing about her 
— what is so dull as a “ quiet” London street on a summer 
evening ? — actually made Elizabeth stand, motionless and 
meditative, for a quarter of an hour. 

Then she started to hear two cabs drive up to the door; 
the “ family” had at length arrived. 

Ascott was there too. Two new portmanteaus and a 
splendid hat-box cast either ignominy or glory upon the 
poor Stowbury luggage ; and — Elizabeth’s sharp eyes no- 
ticed — there was also his trunk, which she had seen lying 
detained for rent in his Gower- Street lodgings. But he 
looked quite easy and comfortable ; handed out his Aunt 
Johanna, commanded the luggage about, and paid the cab- 
men with such a magnificent air that they touched their 
hats to him, and winked at one another, as much as to say, 
“ That’s a real gentleman !” 

In which statement the landlady evidently coincided, and 
courtesied low when Miss Leaf, introducing him as “ my 
nephew,” hoped that a room could be found for him, 
which at last there was, by his appropriating Miss Leaf’s, 
while she and Hilary took that at the top of the house. 
But they agreed Ascott must have a good airy room to 
study in. 

“You know, my dear boy,” said his Aunt Johanna to 
him — and at her tender tone he looked a little downcast, 
as when he was a small fellow and had been forgiven some- 
thing — “ you know you will have to work very hard.” 

“All right, aunt ! I’m your man for that ! This will be 
a jolly room ; and I can smoke up the chimney capitally.” 

So they came down stairs quite cheerfully, and Ascott 
applied himself with the best of appetites to what he call- 
ed a “ hungry” tea. True, the ham, which Elizabeth had 
to fetch from an eating-house some streets off, cost two 


106 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


shillings a pound, and the eggs, which caused her another 
war below over the relighting of a fire to boil them, were 
dismissed by the young gentleman as “ horrid stale.” Still, 
woman-like, when there is a man in the question, his aunts 
let him have his way. It seemed as if they had resolved 
to try their utmost to make the new home to which he 
came, or rather was driven, a pleasant home, and to bind 
him to it with cords of love, the only cords worth any thing, 
though sometimes — Heaven knows why — even they fail, 
and are snapped and thrown aside like straws. 

Whenever Elizabeth went in and out of the parlor she 
always heard lively talk going on among the family : As- 
cott making his jokes, telling about his college life, and 
planning his life to come, as a surgeon in full practice, on 
the most extensive scale. And when she brought in the 
chamber candles, she saw him kiss his aunts affectionately, 
and even help his Aunt Johanna — who looked frightfully 
pale and tired, but smiling still — to her bedroom door. 

“You’ll not sit up long, my dear? No reading to- 
night ?” said she, anxiously. 

“Not a bit of it. And I’ll be up with the lark to-mor- 
row morning. I really will, auntie. I’m going to turn 
over a new leaf, you know.” 

She smiled again at the immemorial joke, kissed and 
blessed him, and the door shut upon her and Hilary. 

Ascott descended to the parlor, threw himself on the sofa 
with an air of great relief, and an exclamation of satisfac- 
tion that “the women” were all gone. He did not perceive 
Elizabeth, who, hidden behind, was kneeling to arrange 
something in the chiffonnier, till she rose up and proceeded 
to fasten the parlor shutters. 

“ Hollo ! are you there ? Come, I’ll do that when I go to 
bed. You may ‘ slope,’ if you like.” 

“Eh, sir?” 

“ Slope, mizzle, cut your stick ; don’t you understand ? 
Anyhow, don’t stop here bothering me.” 

“ I don’t mean to,” replied Elizabeth, gravely rather than 
gruffly, as if she had made up her mind to things as 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


107 


they were, and was determined to be a belligerent party 
no longer. Besides, she was older now — too old to have 
things forgiven to her that might be overlooked in a child; 
and she had received a long lecture from Miss Hilary on 
the necessity of showing respect to Mr. Ascott, or Mr. Leaf, 
as it was now decided he was to be called, in his dignity 
and responsibility as the only masculine head of the family. 

As he lay and lounged there, with his eyes lazily shut, 
Elizabeth stood a minute gazing at him. Then, steadfast 
in her new good behavior, she inquired “ if he wanted any 
thing more to-night.” 

“ Confound you, no ! Yes ; stop.” And the young man 
took a furtive investigation of the plain, honest face, and 
not over-graceful, ultra-provincial figure which still char- 
acterized his aunt’s “ South-Sea Islander.” 

“I say, Elizabeth, I want you to do something for me.” 
He spoke so civilly, almost coaxingly, that Elizabeth turn- 
ed round surprised. “ Would you just go and ask the land- 
lady if she has got such a thing as a latch-key ?” 

“A what, sir ?” 

“A latch-key — a — oh, she knows. Every London house 
has it. Tell her I’ll take care of it, and lock the front door 
all right. She needn’t be afraid of thieves.” 

“ Very well, sir.” 

Elizabeth went, but shortly reappeared with the infor- 
mation that Mrs. J ones had gone to bed — in the kitchen, 
she supposed, as she could not get in. But she laid on the 
table the large street-door key. 

“ Perhaps that’s what you wanted, Mr. Leaf. Though I 
think you needn’t be the least afraid of robbers, for there’s 
three bolts, and a chain besides.” 

“ All right !” cried Ascott, smothering down a laugh. 
“ Thank you ! That’s for you,” throwing a half crown 
across the table. 

Elizabeth took it up demurely, and put it down again. 
Perhaps she did not like him enough to receive presents 
from him ; perhaps she thought, being an honest-minded 
girl, that a young man who could not pay his rent had no 


108 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


business to be giving away half crowns ; or else she herself 
had not been, so much as many servants are, in the habit 
of taking them. For Miss Hilary had put into Elizabeth 
some of her own feeling as to this habit of paying an in- 
ferior with money for any little civility or kindness which, 
from an equal, would be accepted simply as kindness, and 
only requited with thanks. Anyhow, the coin remained 
on the table, and the door was just shutting on Elizabeth, 
when the young gentleman turned round again. 

“ I say, since my aunts are so horridly timid of robbers 
and such like, you'd better not tell them any thing about 
the latch-key.” 

Elizabeth stood a minute perplexed, and then replied 
briefly, “Miss Hilary isn’t a bit timid; and I always tells 
Miss Hilary every thing.” 

Nevertheless, though she w 7 as so ignorant as never to have 
heard of a latch-key, she had the w T it to see that all was not 
right. She even lay awake, in her closet off Miss Leaf’s 
room, whence she could hear the murmur of her two mis- 
tresses talking together long after they retired — lay broad 
awake for an hour or more, trying to put things together 
— the sad things that she felt certain must have happened 
that day, and wondering what Mr. Ascott could possibly 
want with the key. Also, why he had asked her about it, 
instead of telling his aunts at once ; and why he had treat- 
ed her in the matter with such astonishing civility. 

It may be said a servant had no business to think about 
these things, to criticise her young master’s proceedings, or 
wonder why her mistresses were sad : that she had only to 
go about her work like an automaton, and take no interest 
in any thing. I can only answer to those who like such 
service, let them have it ; and as they sow they will as- 
suredly reap. 

But long after Elizabeth, young and hearty, was sound- 
ly snoring on her hard, cramped bed, Johanna and Hilary 
Leaf, after a brief mutual pretense of sleep soon discovered 
by both, lay consulting together over ways and means. 
How could the family expenses, beginning with twenty- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


109 


five shillings per week as rent, possibly be met by the only 
actual certain family income, their <£50 per annum from a 
mortgage ? For the Misses Leaf were of that old-fashion- 
ed stamp which believed that to reckon an income by mere 
probabilities is either insanity or dishonesty. 

Common arithmetic soon proved that this £50 a year 
could not maintain them ; in fact, they must soon draw on 
the little sum — already dipped into to-day for Ascott — 
which had been produced by the sale of the Stowbury fur- 
niture. That sale, they now found, had been a mistake ; 
and they half feared whether the whole change from Stow- 
bury to London had not been a mistake — one of those sad 
errors in judgment which we all commit sometimes, and 
have to abide by, and make the best of, and learn from if 
we can. Happy those to whom “Dinna greet ower spilt 
milk” — a proverb wise as cheerful, which Hilary, knowing 
well who it came from, repeated to Johanna to comfort her 
— teaches a second brave lesson, how to avoid spilling the 
milk a second time. 

And then they consulted anxiously about what was to 
be done to earn money. 

Teaching presented itself as the only resource. In those 
days women’s work and women’s rights had not been dis- 
cussed so freely as at present. There was a strong feeling 
that the principal thing required was our duties — owed to 
ourselves, our home, our family and friends. There was a 
deep conviction — now, alas ! slowly disappearing — that a 
woman, single or married, should never throw herself out 
of the safe circle of domestic life till the last extremity of 
necessity ; that it is wiser to keep or help to keep a home, 
by learning how to expend its income, cook its dinners, 
make and mend its clothes, and, by the law that “ preven- 
tion is better than cure,” studying all those preservative 
means of holding a family together — as women, and wom- 
en alone can — than to dash into men’s sphere of trades and 
professions, thereby in most instances fighting an unequal 
battle, and coming out of it maimed, broken, unsexed ; 
turned into beings that are neither men nor women, with 


no 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


the faults and corresponding sufferings of both, and the 
compensations of neither. 

“I don’t see,” said poor Hilary, “what I can do but 
teach. And oh, if I could only get daily pupils, so that I 
might come home of nights, and creep into the fireside, 
and have time to mend the stockings and look after As- 
cott’s linen, so that he need not be so awfully extrava- 
gant !” 

“ It is Ascott who ought to earn the family income, and 
have his aunt to keep house for him,” observed Johanna. 
“ That was the way in my time, and I believe it is the right 
way. The man ought to go out into the world and earn 
the money ; the woman ought to stay at home and wisely 
expend it.” 

“And yet that way is not always possible. We know 
of ourselves instances where it was not.” 

“ Ah ! yes,” assented Johanna, sighing ; for she, far more 
than Hilary, viewed the family circumstances in the light 
of its past history — a light too sad almost to bear looking 
at. “ But in ours, as in most similar cases, was something 
not right, something which forced men and women out of 
their natural places. It is a thing that may be sometimes 
a mournful, inevitable necessity ; but I never can believe 
it a right thing, or a thing to be voluntarily imitated, that 
women should go knocking about the world like men — 
and—” 

“ And I am not meaning to do any such thing,” said Hi- 
lary, half laughing. “ I am only going to try every ration- 
al means of earning a little money to keep the family go- 
ing till such time as Ascott can decide on his future, and 
find a suitable opportunity for establishing himself in prac- 
tice. In some of the new neighborhoods about London he 
says he has a capital chance ; he will immediately set 
about inquiries. A good idea, don’t you think ?” 

“Yes,” said Johanna, briefly. But they did not discuss 
this as they had discussed their own plans ; and it was no- 
ticeable they never even referred to, as a portion of the 
family finances, that pound a week which, with many re- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Ill 


grets that it was so small, Ascott bad insisted on paying to 
his aunts as bis contribution to tlie expenses of the house- 
hold. 

And now the dawn was beginning to break, and the 
lively London sparrows to chirp in the chimneys. So Hi- 
lary insisted on their talking no more, but going to sleep, 
like Christians. 

“Very well. Good-night, my blessing !” said Johanna, 
softly. And perhaps, indeed, her “blessing,” with that 
strange, bright courage of her own — years after, when Hi- 
lary looked back upon her old self, how utterly mad this 
courage seemed ! — had taken the weight of care from the 
elder and feebler heart, so that Johanna turned round and 
soon slept. 

But long after, till the dawn melted into perfect daylight, 
did Hilary lie, open-eyed, listening to quarter after quarter 
of the loud St. Pancras clock. Brave she was, this little 
woman, fully as brave and cheerful-hearted as, for Johan- 
na’s sake, she made herself out to be; and now that the 
paralyzed monotony of her Stowbury life was gone, and 
that she was in the midst of the whirl of London, where 
he used to work and struggle, she felt doubly bright and 
brave. The sense of resistance, of dogged perseverance, of 
“ fighting it out” to the last, was strong in her, stronger 
than in most women, or else it was the reflection in her 
own of that nature which was her ideal of every thing 
great and good. 

“ No,” she said to herself, after thinking over for the hun- 
dredth time every difficulty that lay before them all — 
meeting and looking in the face every wild beast in the 
way, even that terrible beast which, happily, had often ap- 
proached but never yet visited the Leaf family, “ the wolf 
at the door” — “ no, I don’t think I am afraid. I think I 
shall never be afraid of any thing in this world if only — 
only — ” 

“ If only he loves me.” That was it which broke off un- 
spoken ; the helpless woman’s cry — the cruel craving for 
the one deepest want of a woman’s life — deeper than the 


112 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


same want in man’s, or in most men’s, because it is more 
individual ; not “ if only I &m loved,” but “ if only he loves 
me.” And as Hilary resolutely shut her eyes, and forced 
her aching head into total stillness, sharper than ever, as 
always was the case when she felt weary, mentally or phys- 
ically, came her longing for the hand to cling to, the breast 
to lean against — the heart at once strong and tender, which 
even the bravest woman feels at times she piteously needs. 
A heart which can comfort and uphold her, with the 
strength n<?t of another woman like herself, but of a man, 
encouraging her, as perhaps her very weakness encourages 
him, to “ fight it out,” the sore battle of life, a little longer. 
But this support, in any shape, from any man, the women 
of the Leaf family had never known. 

The nearest approach to it were those letters from India, 
which had become, Johanna sometimes jestingly said, a 
family institution. For they were family letters; there 
was no mystery about them ; they were passed from one 
to the other, and commented on in perfect freedom — so 
freely, indeed, that Selina had never penetrated into the 
secret of them at all. But their punctuality, their faithful 
remembrance of the smallest things concerning the past, 
their strong interest in any thing and every thing belong- 
ing to the present of these his old friends, were to the oth- 
er two sisters confirmation enough as to how they might 
believe in Robert Lyon. 

Hilary did believe, and in her perfect trust was perfect 
rest. Whether he ever married her or not, she felt sure — 
surer and surer every day — that to her had been sent that 
best blessing — the lot of so few women — a thoroughly 
good man to love her and to love. 

So with his face in her memory, and the sound of his 
voice in her ear as distinctly as if it had been only yester- 
day that he said “You must trust me, Hilary,” she whis- 
pered to herself, “I do, Robert, I do!” and went to sleep 
peacefully as a child. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


113 


CHAPTER XI. 

With a sublime indifference to popular superstition, or, 
rather, because they did not think of it till all their arrange- 
ments were completed, the Misses Leaf had accomplished 
their grand hegira on a Friday. Consequently, their first 
day at No. 15 was Sunday. 

Sunday in London always strikes a provincial person 
considerably. It has two such distinct sides. First, the 
eminently respectable, decorous, religious side, which Hila- 
ry and Selina observed when, about 11 A.M., they joined 
the stream of well-dressed, well-to-do-looking people, soli- 
tary or in families, who poured forth from handsome houses 
in streets or squares, to form the crowded congregation of 
St. Pancras’s Church. The opposite side Hilary also saw 
when Ascott, who, in spite of his declaration, had not risen 
in time for breakfast, penitently coaxed his “ pretty aunt” 
to let him take her to the afternoon service in Westmin- 
ster Abbey. They wended their way through Tottenham 
Court Road, Oxford Street, Regent Street, and across the 
park, finding shops open or half open, vehicles plying, and 
people streaming down each side of the streets. 

Hilary did not quite like it, and yet her heart was tender 
over the poor, hard-worked-looking Cockneys, who seemed 
so excessively to enjoy their Sunday stroll, their Sunday 
mouthful of fresh air ; or the small Sunday treat their sick- 
ly, under-sized children had in lying on the grass, and feed- 
ing the ducks in St. James’s Park. 

She tried to talk the matter out with Ascott, but, though 
he listened politely for a minute or two, he evidently took 
no interest in such things. Nor did he even in the grand 
old Abbey, with its tree-like, arched avenues of immemori- 
al stone, its painted windows, through which the colored 
sunshine made a sort of heavenly mist of light, and its in- 
numerable graves of generations below. Hilary woke from 


114 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


her trance of solemn delight to find her nephew amusing 
himself with staring at the people about him, making sotto 
voce quizzical remarks upon them in the intervals of the 
service, and, finally, the instant it was ended, starting up in 
extreme satisfaction, evidently feeling that he had done his 
duty, and that it had been, to use his own phrase, “ a con- 
founded bore.” 

Yet he meant to be kind to his pretty aunt — told her he 
liked to walk with her because she was so pretty, praised 
her dress, so neat and tasteful, though a little old-fashioned. 
But he would soon alter that, he said; he would dress all 
his aunts in silk and satin, and give them a carriage to ride 
in ; there should be no end to their honor and prosperity. 
Nay, coming home, he took her a long way round — or she 
thought so, being tired — to show her the sort of house he 
meant to have. Very grand it seemed to her Stowbury 
eyes, with pillars and a flight of steps up to the door — 
more fit, she ventured to suggest, for a retired merchant 
than a struggling young surgeon. 

“ Oh, but we dare not show the struggle, or nobody 
would ever trust us,” said Ascott, with a knowing look. 
“ Bless you, many a young fellow sets up a house, and even 
a carriage, on tick, and drives and drives about till he 
drives himself into a practice. The world’s all a make-be- 
lieve, and you must meet humbug with humbug. That’s 
the way, I assure you, Aunt Hilary.” 

Aunt Hilary fixed her honest eyes on the lad’s face — the 
lad, so little younger than herself, and yet who at times, 
when he let out sayings such as this, seemed so awfully, 
so pitifully old; and she felt thankful that, at all risks and 
costs, they had come to London to be beside him, to help 
him, to save him, if he needed saving, as women only can. 
For, after all, he was but a boy. And though, as he walk- 
ed by her side, stalwart and manly, the thought smote her 
painfully that many a young fellow of his age was the stay 
and bread-winner of some widowed mother or sister, nay, 
even of wife and child, still she repeated, cheerfully, “What 
can one expect from him ? He is only a boy.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


115 


God help the women who, for those belonging to them 
—husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers, sons — have ever so 
tenderly to apologize. 

When they came in sight of St.Pancras’s Church, Ascott 
said, suddenly, “ I think you’ll know your way now, Aunt 
Hilary.” 

“ Certainly. Why ?” 

“ Because — you wouldn’t be vexed if I left you? I have 
an engagement — some fellows that I dine with, out at 
Hampstead, or Richmond, or Blackwall, every Sunday. 
Nothing wicked, I assure you. And you know it’s capital 
for one’s health to get a Sunday in fresh air.” 

“Yes; but Aunt Johanna will be sorry to miss you.” 

“ Will she ? Oh, you’ll smooth her down. Stay ! Tell 
her I’ll be back to tea.” 

“We shall be having tea directly.” 

“I declare I had quite forgotten. Aunt Hilary, you 
must change your hours. They don’t suit me at all. No 
men can ever stand early dinners. By, by ! You are the 
very prettiest auntie. Be sure you get home safe. Hollo, 
there ! That’s my omnibus.” 

He jumped on the top of it and was off. 

Aunt Hilary stood, quite confounded, and with one of 
those strange sinkings of the heart which had come over 
her several times this day. It was not that Ascott show- 
ed any unkindness — that there was any actual badness in 
his bright and handsome young face. Still there was a 
want there — want of earnestness, steadfastness, truthful- 
ness, a something more discoverable as the lack of some- 
thing else than as aught in itself tangibly and perceptibly 
wrong. It made her sad ; it caused her to look forward to 
his future with an anxious heart. It was so different from 
the kind of anxiety, and yet settled repose, with which she 
thought of the only other man in whose future she felt the 
smallest interest. Of Robert Lyon she was certain that 
whatever misfortune visited him he would bear it in the 
best way it could be borne ; whatever temptation assailed 
him he would fight against it, as a brave and good Chris- 
tian should fight. But Ascott ? 


116 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Ascott’s life was yet an unanswered query. She could 
but leave it in Omnipotent hands. 

So she found her way home, asking it once or twice of 
civil policemen, and going a little distance round — dare I 
make this romantic confession about so sensible and prac- 
tical a little woman ? — that she might walk once up Bur- 
ton Street and down again. But nobody knew the fact, 
and it did nobody any harm. 

Meantime at No. 15 the afternoon had passed heavily 
enough. Miss Selina had gone to lie down — she always 
did of Sundays, and Elizabeth, after making her comforta- 
ble by the little attentions the lady always required, had de- 
scended to the dreary wash-house, which had been appro- 
priated to herself under the name of a “ private kitchen,” 
in the which, after all the cleanings and improvements she 
could achieve, she sat like Marius among the ruins of Car- 
thage, and sighed for the tidy bright house-place at Stow- 
bury. Already, from her brief experience, she had decided 
that London people were horrid shams, because they did 
not in the least care to have their kitchens comfortable. 
She wondered how she should ever exist in this one, and 
might have carried her sad and sullen face up stairs if Miss 
Leaf had not come down stairs, and glancing about, with 
that ever-gentle smile of hers, said kindly, “ Well, it is not 
very pleasant, but you have made the best of it, Elizabeth. 
We must all put up with something, you know. Now, as 
my eyes are not very good to-day, suppose you come up 
and read me a chapter.” 

So, in the quiet parlor, the maid sat down opposite her 
mistress, and read aloud out of that Book which says dis- 
tinctly, 

“ Servants , be obedient to them, that are your masters ac- 
cording to the flesh , with fear and trembling , in singleness 
of heart , as unto Christ : knowing that whatsoever good 
thing any man doeth , the same shall he receive of the Lord , 
whether he be bond or free.” 

And yet says immediately after, 

“ Ye masters , do the same things unto them , forbearing 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


117 


threatening : knowing that your Master also is in heaven ; 
neither is there respect of persons with him” 

And I think that Master whom Paul served, not in 
preaching only, but also in practice, when he sent back the 
slave Onesimus to Philemon, praying that he might be re* 
ceived, “ not now as a servant, but above a servant, a broth- 
er beloved,” that divine Master must have looked tenderly 
upon these two women — both women, though of such dif- 
ferent age and position, and taught them through his Spirit 
in his Word, as only he can teach. 

The reading was disturbed by a carriage driving up to 
the door, and a knock, a tremulously grand and forcible 
footman’s knock, which made Miss Leaf start in her easy 
chair. 

“ But it can’t be visitors to us. We know nobody. Sit 
still, Elizabeth.” 

It was a visitor, however, though by what ingenuity he 
found them out remained, when they came to think of it, a 
great puzzle. A card was sent in by the dirty servant of 
Mrs. Jones, speedily followed by a stout, bald-headed, 
round-faced man — I suppose I ought to write “gentleman” 
— in whom, though she had not seen him for years, Miss 
Leaf found no difficulty in recognizing the grocer’s ’pren- 
tice-boy, now Mr. Peter Ascott, of Russell Square. 

She rose to receive him : there was always a stateliness 
in Miss Leaf’s reception of strangers ; a slight formality 
belonging to her own past generation, and to the time 
when the Leafs were a “county family.” Perhaps this 
extra dignity, graceful as it was, overpowered the little 
man, or else, being a bachelor, he was unaccustomed to la- 
dies’ society ; but he grew red in the face, twiddled his hat, 
and then cast a sharp inquisitive glance toward her. 

“ Miss Leaf, I presume, ma’am. The eldest ?” 

“ I am the eldest Miss Leaf, and very glad to have an 
opportunity of thanking you for your long kindness to my 
nephew. Elizabeth, give Mr. Ascott a chair.” 

While doing so, and before her disappearance, Elizabeth 
took a rapid observation of the visitor, whose name and 


118 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


history were perfectly familiar to her. Most small towns 
have their hero, and Stowbury’s was Peter Ascott, the gro- 
cer’s boy, the little fellow who had gone up to London to 
seek his fortune, and had, strange to say, found it. Wheth- 
er by industry or luck — except that industry is luck, and 
luck is only another word for industry — he had gradually 
risen to be a large city merchant, a drysalter I conclude it 
would be called, with a handsome house, carriage, etc. He 
had never revisited his native place, which indeed could 
not be expected of him, as he had no relations, but when 
asked, as was not seldom, of course he subscribed liberally 
to its charities. 

Altogether he was a decided hero in the place; and 
though people really knew very little about him, the less 
they knew the more they gossiped, holding him up to the ris- 
ing generation as a modern Dick Whittington, and reveren- 
cing him extremely as one who had shed glory on his native 
town. Even Elizabeth had conceived a great idea of Mr. 
Ascott. When she saw this little fat man, coarse and com- 
mon-looking in spite of his good clothes and diamond ring, 
and in manner a curious mixture of pomposity and awk- 
wardness, she laughed to herself, thinking what a very un- 
interesting individual it was about whom Stowbury had 
told so many interesting stories. 

However, she went up to inform Miss Selina, and pre- 
vent her making her appearance before him in the usual 
Sunday dishabille in which she indulged when no visitors 
were expected. 

After the first awkwardness, Mr. Peter Ascott became 
quite at his ease with Miss Leaf. He began to talk — not 
of Stowbury, that was tacitly ignored by both — but of 
London, and then of “ my house in Russell Square,” “my 
carriage,” “ my servants” — the inconvenience of keeping 
coachmen who would drink, and footmen who would not 
clean the plate properly ; ending by what was a favorite 
moral axiom of his, that “ wealth and position are heavy 
responsibilities.” 

He himself seemed, however, not to have been quite 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


119 


overwhelmed by them ; he was fat and flourishing — with 
an acuteness and power in the upper half of his face which 
accounted for his having attained his present position. The 
lower half — somehow Miss Leaf did not like it, she hardly 
knew why, though a physiognomist might have known. 
For Peter Ascott had the underhanging, obstinate, sensual 
lip, the large throat — bull-necked, as it has beeii called — 
indications of that essentially animal nature which may be 
born with the nobleman as with the clown ; which no edu- 
cation can refine, and no talent, though it may coexist with 
it, can ever entirely remove. He reminded one, perforce, 
of the rough old proverb, “ You can’t make a silk purse out 
of a sow’s ear.” 

Still, Mr. Ascott was not a bad man, though something 
deeper than his glorious indifference to grammar, and his 
dropped h’s — which, to steal some one’s joke, might have 
been swept up in bushels from Miss Leaf’s parlor — made 
it impossible for him ever to be, by any culture whatever, 
a gentleman. 

They talked of Ascott, as being the most convenient 
mutual subject; and Miss Leaf expressed the gratitude 
which her nephew felt, and she earnestly hoped would ever 
show, toward his kind godfather. 

Mr. Ascott looked pleased. 

“ Um — yes, Ascott’s not a bad fellow — believe he means 
well ; but weak, ma’am, Pm afraid he’s weak. Knows 
nothing of business — has no business habits whatever. 
However, we must make the best of him ; I don’t repent 
any thing I’ve done for him.” 

“ I hope not,” said Miss Leaf, gravely. 

And then there ensued an uncomfortable pause, which 
was happily broken by the opening of the door, and the 
sweeping in of a large, goodly figure. 

“ My sister, Mr. Ascott ; my sister Selina.” 

The little stout man actually started, and, as he bowed, 
blushed up to the eyes. 

Miss Selina was, as I have stated, the beauty of the fam- 
ily, and had once been an acknowledged Stowbury belle. 


120 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Even now, though nigh upon forty, when carefully and be- 
comingly dressed, her tall figure, and her well-featured, 
fair-complexioned, unwrinkled face made her still appear a 
very personable woman. At any rate, she was not faded 
enough, nor the city magnate’s heart cold enough, to pre- 
vent a sudden revival of the vision which — in what now 
seemed an almost antediluvian stage of existence — had 
dazzled, Sunday after Sunday, the eyes, of the grocer’s lad. 
If there is one pure spot in a man’s heart — even the very 
worldliest of men — it is usually his boyish first love. 

So Peter Ascott looked hard at Miss Selina, then into his 
hat, then, as good luck would have it, out of the window, 
where he caught sight of his carriage and horses. These 
revived his spirits, and made him recognize what he was — 
Mr. Ascott of Russell Square, addressing himself in the 
character of a benevolent patron to the fallen Leaf family. 

“ Glad to see you, miss. Long time since we met — 
neither of us so young as we have been — but you do wear 
well, I must say.” 

Miss Selina drew back ; she was within an inch of being 
highly offended, when she too happened to catch a glimpse 
of the carriage and horses. So she sat down and entered 
into conversation with him ; and when she liked, nobody 
could be more polite and agreeable than Miss Selina. 

So it happened that the handsome equipage crawled 
round and round the Crescent, or stood pawing the silent 
Sunday street before No. 15 for very nearly an hour, even 
till Hilary came home. 

It was vexatious to have to make excuses for Ascott, 
particularly as his godfather said with a laugh that “ young 
fellows would be young fellows they needn’t expect to 
see the lad till midnight, or till to-morrow morning. 

But though in this and other things he somewhat an- 
noyed the ladies from Stowbury, no one could say he was 
not civil to them — exceedingly civil. He offered them Bo- 
tanical Garden tickets — Zoological Garden tickets ; he 
even, after some meditation and knitting of his shaggy 
gray eyebrows, bolted out with an invitation for the 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


121 


whole family to dinner at Russell Square the following 
Sunday. 

“I always give my dinners on Sunday. I’ve no time 
any other day,” said he, when Miss Leaf gently hesitated. 
“Come or not, just as you like.” 

Miss Selina, to whom the remark was chiefly addressed, 
bowed the most gracious acceptance. 

The visitor took very little notice of Miss Hilary. Prob- 
ably, if asked, he would have described her as a small, 
shabbily - dressed person, looking very like a governess. 
Indeed the fact of her governess-ship seemed suddenly to 
recur to him ; he asked her if she meant to set up another 
school, and being informed that she rather wished private 
pupils, promised largely that she should have the full ben- 
efit of his “patronage” among his friends. Then he de- 
parted, leaving a message for Ascott to call next day, as 
he wished to speak to him. 

“For you must be aware, Miss Leaf, that though your 
nephew’s allowance is nothing — a mere drop in the bucket 
out of my large income — still, when it comes year after 
year, and no chance of his shifting for himself, the most 
benevolent man in the world feels inclined to stop the sup- 
plies. Not that I shall do that — at least not immediately : 
he is a fine young fellow, whom I’m rather proud to have 
helped a step up the ladder, and I’ve a great respect” — 
here he bowed to Miss Selina — “ a great respect for your 
family. Still there must come a time when I shall be 
obliged to shut up my purse-strings. You understand, 
ma’am.” 

“ I do,” Miss Leaf answered, trying to speak with digni- 
ty, and yet patience, for she saw Hilary’s face beginning to 
flame. “ And I trust, Mr. Ascott, my nephew will soon 
cease to be an expense to you. It was your own volun- 
tary kindness that brought it upon yourself, and I hope 
you have not found, never will find, either him or us un- 
grateful.” 

“ Oh, as to that, ma’am, I don’t look for gratitude. Still, 
if Ascott does work his way into a good position — and 


122 


Mistress and maid. 


he’ll be the first of his family that ever did, I reckon — but 
I beg your pardon, Miss Leaf. Ladies, I’ll bid you good 
day. Will your servant call my carriage ?” 

The instant he was gone Hilary burst forth — 

“ If I were Ascott, I’d rather starve in a garret, break 
stones in the high-road, or buy a broom and sweep a cross- 
ing, than I’d be dependent on this man, this pompous, 
purse-proud, illiterate fool !” 

“No, not a fool,” reproved Johanna. “An acute, clear- 
headed, nor, I think, bad-hearted man. Coarse and com- 
mon, certainly ; but if we were to hate every thing coarse 
or common, we should find plenty to hate. Besides, though 
he does his kindness in an unpleasant way, think how very, 
very kind he has been to Ascott.” 

“Johanna,! think you would find a good word for the 
de’il himself, as we used to say,” cried Hilary, laughing. 
“ Well, Selina, and what is your opinion of our stout 
friend ?” 

Miss Selina, bridling a little, declared that she did not 
see so much to complain of in Mr. Ascott. He was not ed- 
ucated certainly, but he was a most respectable person. 
And his calling upon them so soon was most civil and at- 
tentive. She thought, considering his present position, 
they should forget — indeed, as Christians they were bound 
to forget — that he was once their grocer’s boy, and go to 
dine w r ith him next Sunday. 

“ For my part, I shall go, though it is Sunday. I con- 
sider it quite a religious duty — my duty toward my neigh- 
bor.” 

“ Which is to love him as yourself. I am sure, Selina, I 
have no objection. It would be a grand romantic wind- 
up to the story which Stowbury used to tell — of how the 
'prentice-boy stared his eyes out at the beautiful young 
lady ; and you would get the advantage of c my house in 
Russell Square,’ 4 my carriage and servants,’ and be able to 
elevate your whole family. Do, now! set your cap at 
Peter Ascott.” 

Here Hilary, breaking out into one of her childish fits 


MISTRESS AND MAID* 


123 


of irrepressible laughter, was startled to see Selina’s face 
in one blaze of indignation. 

“Hold your tongue, you silly chit, and don’t chatter 
about things you don’t understand.” 

And she swept majestically from the room. 

“ What have I done ? Why, she is really vexed. If I 
had thought she would have taken it in earnest I would 
never have said a word. Who would have thought it !” 

But Miss Selina’s fits of annoyance were so common that 
the sisters rarely troubled themselves long on the matter. 
And when at tea-time she came down in the best of spirits, 
they met her half w ay, as they always did, thankful for . 
these brief calms in the family atmosphere, which never 
lasted too long. 

It was a somewhat heavy evening. They waited supper 
till after ten, and yet Ascott did not appear. Miss Leaf 
read the chapter as usual ; and Elizabeth was sent to bed, 
but still no sign of the absentee. 

“I will sit up for him. He can not be many minutes 
now,” said his Aunt Hilary, and settled herself in the soli- 
tary parlor, which one candle and no fire made as cheerless 
as could possibly be. 

There she waited till midnight before the young man 
came in. Perhaps he was struck with compunction by her 
weary white face — by her silent lighting of his candle, for 
he made her a thousand apologies. 

“ ’Pon my honor, Aunt Hilary, I’ll never keep you up so 
late again. Poor dear auntie, how tired she looks t” and 
he kissed her affectionately. “ But if you were a young 
fellow, and got among other young fellows, and they over- 
persuaded you.” 

“You should learn to say No.” 

“ Ah !” — with a sigh — “ so I ought, if I were as good as 
my Aunt Hilary.” 


124 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Months slipped by; the trees in Barton Crescent had 
long been all bare ; the summer cries of itinerant vegetable 
dealers and flower - sellers had vanished out of the quiet 
street. The three sisters almost missed them, sitting in 
that one dull parlor from morning till night, in the intense 
solitude of people w r ho, having neither heart nor money to 
spend in gayeties, live forlorn in London lodgings, and 
knowing nobody, have nobody to visit, nobody to visit 
them — 

Except Mr. Ascott, who still called, and occasionally 
staid to tea. The hospitalities, however, were all on their 
side. The first entertainment — to which Selina insisted 
upon going, and Johanna thought Hilary and Ascott had 
better go too — was splendid enough, but they were the 
only ladies present ; and though Mr. Ascott did the honors 
•with great magnificence, putting Miss Selina at the head 
of his table, where she looked exceedingly well, still the 
sister agreed it was better that all further invitations to 
Russell Square should be declined. Miss Selina herself said 
it would be more dignified and decorous. 

Other visitors they had none. Ascott never offered to 
bring any of his friends, and gradually they saw very lit- 
tle of him. He was frequently out, especially at meal- 
times, so that his aunts gave up the struggle to make the 
humble dinners better and more to his liking, and would 
even have hesitated to take the money which he was un- 
derstood to pay for his board, had he offered it, which he 
did not. Yet still, -whenever he did happen to remain with 
them a day or an evening, he was good and affectionate, 
and always entertained them with descriptions of all he 
would do as soon as he got into practice. 

Meantime they kept house as economically as possible 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


125 


upon the little ready money they had, hoping that more 
would come in — that Hilary would get pupils. 

But Hilary never did. To any body who knows London 
this will not be surprising. The wonder was in the Misses 
Leaf being so simple as to imagine that a young country 
lady, settling herself in lodgings in an obscure metropoli- 
tan street, without friends or introduction, could ever ex- 
pect such a thing. Nothing but her own daring, and the 
irrepressible well-spring of hope that w T as in her healthy 
youth, could have sustained her in w’hat, ten years after, 
would have appeared to her, as it certainly was, downright 
insanity. But Heaven takes care of the mad, the righteous- 
ly and unselfishly mad, and Heaven took care of poor Hi- 
lary. 

The hundred labors she went through — weariness of 
body and travail of soul, the risks she ran, the pitfalls she 
escaped — what need to record here ? Many have recorded 
the like, many more have known them, and acknowledged 
that when such histories are reproduced in books how ut- 
terly imagination fades before reality. Hilary never look- 
ed back upon that time herself without a shuddering won- 
der how she could have dared all and gone through all. 
Possibly she never could but for the sweet old face, grow- 
ing older yet sweeter every day, which smiled upon her 
the minute she opened the door of that dull parlor, and 
made even No. 15 look like home. 

When she told, sometimes gayly, sometimes with burn- 
ing, bursting tears, the tale of her day’s efforts and day’s 
failures, it was always comfort to feel Johanna’s hand on 
her hair, Johanna’s voice whispering over her, “Never 
mind, my child, all will come right in time. All happens 
for good.” 

And the face, withered and worn, yet calm as a sum- 
mer sea, full of the “ peace which passeth all understand- 
ing,” was a living comment on the truth of these words. 

Another comfort Hilary had — Elizabeth. During her 
long days of absence, wandering from one end of London 
to the other, after advertisements that she had answered, 


126 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


or governess institutions that she had applied to, the do- 
mestic affairs fell almost entirely into the hands of Eliza- 
beth. It was she who bought in, and kept a jealous eye, 
not unneeded, over provisions ; she who cooked and wait- 
ed, and sometimes even put a helping hand, coarse, but 
willing, into the family sewing and mending. This had 
now become so vital a necessity that it was fortunate Miss 
Leaf had no other occupation, and Miss Selina no other en- 
tertainment, than stitch, stitch, stitch, at the ever-begin- 
ning, neveivending wardrobe wants which assail decent 
poverty every where, especially in London. 

“ Clothes seem to wear out frightfully fast,” said Hilary 
one day, when she was putting on her oldest gow r n, to suit 
a damp, foggy day, when the streets were slippery with 
the mud of settled rain. 

“ I saw such beautiful merino dresses in a shop in South- 
ampton Row,” insinuated Elizabeth ; but her mistress shook 
her head. 

“No, no; my old black silk will do capitally, and I can 
easily put on two shawls. Nobody knows me; and peo- 
ple may wear what they like in London. Don’t look so 
grave, Elizabeth. What does it signify if I can but keep 
myself warm? Now run away.” 

Elizabeth obeyed, but shortly reappeared with a bundle 
— a large, old-fashioned thick shawl. 

“ Mother gave it me ; her mistress gave it her ; but 
we’ve never worn it, and never shall. If only you didn’t 
mind putting it on, just this once — this terrible soaking 
day !” 

The scarlet face, the entreating tones — there was no re- 
sisting them. One natural pang Hilary felt — that in her 
sharp poverty she had fallen so low as to be indebted to 
her servant, and then she too blushed, less for shame at ac- 
cepting the kindness than for her own pride that could not 
at once receive it as such. 

“ Thank you, Elizabeth,” she said, gravely and gently, 
and let herself be wrapped in the thick shawl. Its gor- 
geous reds and yellows would, she knew, make her notice- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


127 


able, even though “people might wear any thing in Lon- 
don.” Still, she put it on with a good grace; and all 
through her peregrinations that day it warmed, not only 
her shoulders, but her heart. 

Coming home, she paused wistfully before a glittering 
shoe-shop — her poor little feet were so soaked and cold. 
Could she possibly afford a new pair of boots ? It was not 
a matter of vanity — she had passed that. She did not care 
now how ugly and shabby looked the “ wee feet” that had 
once been praised ; but she felt it might be a matter of 
health and prudence. Suppose she caught cold — fell ill — 
died — died, leaving Johanna to struggle alone — died be- 
fore Robert Lyon came home. Both thoughts struck sharp. 
She was too young still, or had not suffered enough, calm- 
ly to think of death and dying. 

“ It will do no harm to inquire the price. I might stop 
it out in omnibuses.” 

For this w^as the way every new article of dress had to 
be procured — “ stopping it out” of something else. 

After trying several pairs — with a fierce, bitter blush at 
a small hole which the day’s walking had worn in her well- 
darned stockings, and which she was sure the shopman 
saw, as well as an old lady who sat opposite — Hilary 
bought the stoutest and plainest of boots. The bill over- 
stepped her purse by sixpence, but she promised that sum 
on delivery, and paid the rest. She had got into a nervous 
horror of letting any account stand over for a single day. 

Look tenderly, reader, on this picture of struggles so 
small, of sufferings so uninteresting and mean. I paint it 
not because it is original, but because it is so awfully true. 
Thousands of women, well born, well reared, know it to be 
true — burned into them by the cruel conflict of their youth ; 
happy they if it ended in their youth, while mind and body 
had still enough vitality and elasticity to endure ! I paint 
it because it accounts for the accusation sometimes made 
— especially by men — that women are naturally “ stingy.” 
Possibly so ; but in many instances may it not have been 
this petty struggle with petty wants, this pitiful calcula- 


128 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ting of penny against penny, how best to save here and 
spend there, which narrows a woman’s nature in spite of 
herself? It sometimes takes years of comparative ease 
and freedom from pecuniary cares to counteract the grind 
ing, lowering effects of a youth of poverty. 

And I paint this picture, too, literally, and not on its pic- 
turesque side — if, indeed, poverty has a picturesque side — 
in order to show another side which it really has — high, 
heroic, made up of dauntless endurance, self-sacrifice, and 
self-control. Also to indicate that blessing which narrow 
circumstances alone bestow, the habit of looking more to 
the realities than to the shows of things, and of finding 
pleasure in enjoyments mental rather than sensuous, in- 
ward rather than external. When people can truly recog- 
nize this they cease either to be afraid or ashamed of pov- 
erty. 

Hilary was not ashamed — not even now, when hers 
smote sharper and harder than it had ever done at Stow- 
bury. She felt it a sore thing enough ; but it never humil- 
iated nor angered her. Either she was too proud or not 
proud enough; but her low estate always seemed to her 
too simply external a thing to affect her relations with the 
world outside. She never thought of being annoyed with 
the shopkeeper, who, though he trusted her with the six- 
pence, carefully took down her name and address; still 
less to suspecting the old lady opposite, who sat and listen- 
ed to the transaction — apparently a well-to-do customer, 
clad in a rich black silk and handsome sable furs — of look- 
ing down upon her and despising her. She herself never 
despised any body except for wickedness. 

So she waited contentedly, neither thinking of herself 
nor of what others thought of her, but with her mind 
quietly occupied by the two thoughts, which in any brief 
space of rest always recurred, calming down all annoy- 
ances, and raising her above the level of petty pains — Jo- 
hanna, and Robert Lyon. Under the influence of these 
her tired face grew composed, and there was a wishful, 
far-away, fond look in her eyes, which made it not wonder- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


129 


ful that the said old lady — apparently an acute old soul in 
her way — should watch her, as we do occasionally watch 
strangers in whom we have become suddenly interested. 

There is no accounting for these interests, or to the 
events to which they give rise. Sometimes they are pooh- 
pooh-ed as “ romantic,” “ unnatural,” “ like a bit in a nov- 
el ;” and yet they are facts continually occurring, especial- 
ly to people of quick intuition, observation, and sympathy. 
Nay, even the most ordinary people have known or heard 
of such, resulting in mysterious, life-long loves; firm friend- 
ships ; strange yet often wonderful happy marriages ; sud- 
den revolutions of fortune and destiny : things utterly un- 
accountable for, except by the belief in the unscrutable 
Providence which 

“ Shapes our ends, 

Rough-hew them as we will.” 

When Hilary left the shop she was startled by a voice 
at her elbow. 

“ I beg your pardon, but if your way lies up Southamp- 
ton Row, would you object to give an old woman a share 
of that capital umbrella of yours ?” 

“ With pleasure,” Hilary answered, though the oddness 
of the request amused her. And it was granted really 
with pleasure, for the old lady spoke with those “ accents 
of the mountain tongue” which this foolish Hilary never 
recognized without a thrill at the heart. 

“ Maybe you think an old woman ought to take a cab, 
and not be intruding upon strangers ; but I am hale and 
hearty, and, being only a street’s length from my own door, 
I dislike to waste unnecessary shillings.” 

“ Certainly,” acquiesced Hilary, with a half sigh : shil- 
lings were only too precious to her. 

“I saw you in the boot-shop, and you seemed the sort 
of young lady who would do a kindness to an old body 
like me, so I said to myself , i I’ll ask her.’ ” 

“ I am glad you did.” Poor girl ! she felt unconscious- 
ly pleased at finding herself still able to show a kindness 
to any body. 


130 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


They walked on and on — it was certainly a long street’s 
length — to the stranger’s door, and it took Hilary a good 
way round from hers ; but she said nothing of this, con- 
cluding, of course, that her companion was unaware of 
where she lived — in which she was mistaken. They stop- 
ped at last before a respectable house near Brunswick 
Square, bearing a brass plate, with the words “ Miss Bal- 
quidder.” 

“ That is my name, and very much obliged to you, my 
dear. How it rains ! Ye’re just droukit.” 

Hilary smiled and shook her damp shawl. “ I shall take 
no harm. I am used to going out in all weathers.” 

“Are you a governess?” The question was so direct 
and kindly that it hardly seemed an impertinence. 

“ Yes ; but I have no pupils, and fear I shall never get 
any.” 

“ Why not?” 

“ I suppose, because I know nobody here. It seems so 
very hard to get teaching in London. But I beg your 
pardon.” 

“ I beg yours,” said Miss Balquidder — not without a cer- 
tain dignity — “ for asking questions of a stranger. But I 
was once a stranger here myself, and had a ‘ sair fecht,’ as 
we say in Scotland, before I could earn even my daily 
bread. Though I wasn’t a governess, still I know pretty 
well what the sort of life is, and if I had daughters who 
must work for their bread, the one thing I would urge 
upon them should be — ‘Never become a governess.’” 

“ Indeed. For what reason ?” 

“I’ll not tell you now, my dear, standing with all your 
wet clothes on ; but as I said, if you will do me the favor 
to call—” 

“ Thank you !” said Hilary, not sufficiently initiated in 
London caution to dread making a new aquaintance. Be- 
sides, she liked the rough-hewn, good-natured face, and 
the Scotch accent was sweet to her ear. 

Yet when she reached home she was half shy of telling 
her sisters the engagement she had made. Selina was ex- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


131 


tremely shocked, and considered it quite necessary that 
the London Directory — the nearest clergyman — or per- 
haps Mr. Ascott, who, living in the parish, must know — • 
should be consulted as to Miss Balquidder’s respectability. 

“ She has much more reason to question ours,” recollect- 
ed Hilary, with some amusement, “ for I never told her my 
name or address. She does not know a single thing about 
me.” 

Which fact, arguing the matter energetically two days 
after, the young lady might not have been so sure of, could 
she have penetrated the ceiling overhead. In truth, Miss 
Balquidder, a prudent person, who never did things by 
halves, and, like most truly generous people, was cautious 
even in her extremest fits of generosity, at that very mo- 
ment was sitting in Mrs. Jones’s first floor, deliberately dis- 
covering every thing possible to be learned about the Leaf 
family. 

Nevertheless, owing to Selina’s indignant pertinacity, 
Hilary’s own hesitation, and a dim hope of a pupil which 
rose up and faded like the rest, the possible acquaintance 
lay dormant for two or three weeks ; till, alas ! the fabu- 
lous wolf actually came to the door ; and the sisters, after 
paying their week’s rent, looked aghast at one another, not 
knowing where in the wide world the next week’s rent was 
to come from. 

“ Thank God, we don’t owe any thing — not a penny !” 
gasped Hilary. 

“ No ; there is comfort in that,” said Johanna. And the 
expression of her folded hands and upward face was not 
despairing, even though that of the poor widow, when her 
barrel of meal was gone, and her cruse of oil spent, would 
hardly have been sadder. 

“ I am sure we have wasted nothing, and cheated nobody 
— surely God will help us.” 

“ I know he will, my child.” 

And the two sisters, elder and younger, kissed one an- 
other, cried a little, and then sat down to consider what 
was to be done. 


132 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Ascott must be told how things were with them. Hith- 
erto they had not troubled him much with their affairs ; 
indeed, he was so little at home. And, after some private 
consultation, both Johanna and Hilary decided that it was 
wisest to let the lad come and go as he liked, not attempt- 
ing — as he once indignantly expressed it — “ to tie him to 
their apron-strings.” For instinctively these maiden la- 
dies felt that with men, and, above all, young men, the only 
way to bind the wandering heart was to leave it free, ex- 
cept by trying their utmost that home should be always a 
pleasant home. 

It was touching to see their efforts, when Ascott came in 
of evenings, to enliven for his sake the dull parlor at No. 
15. How Johanna put away her mending, and Selina 
ceased to grumble, and Hilary began her lively chat, that 
never failed to brighten and amuse the household. Her 
nephew even sometimes acknowledged that wherever he 
went, he met nobody so “ clever” as'Aunt Hilary. 

So, presuming upon her influence with him, on this night, 
after the rest were gone to bed, she — being always the 
boldest to do any unpleasant thing — said to him, 

“ Ascott, how are your business affairs progressing ? 
When do you think you will be able to get into practice ?” 

“Oh, presently. There’s no hurry.” 

“ I am not so sure of that. Do you know, my dear boy” 
— and she opened her purse, which contained a few shil- 
lings — “ that this is all the money we have in the world ?’* 

“Nonsense,” said Ascott, laughing. “I beg your par- 
don,” he added, seeing it was with her no laughing matter; 
“ but I am so accustomed to be hard up that I don’t seem 
to care. It always comes right somehow — at least with 
me.” 

“How?” 

“ Oh, I don’t exactly know ; but it does. Don’t fret, 
Aunt Hilary. I’ll lend you a pound or two.” 

She drew back. These poor, proud, fond women, who, 
if their boy, instead of a fine gentleman, had been a help- 
less invalid, would have tended him, worked for him, nay, 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


133 


begged for him — cheerfully, oh ! how cheerfully ; wanting 
nothing in the whole world but his love — they could not 
ask him for his money. Even now, offered thus, Hilary 
felt as if to take it would be intolerable. 

Still the thing must be done. 

“ I wish, Ascott” — and she nerved herself to say what 
somebody ought to say to him — “I wish you would not 
lend, but pay us the pound a week you said you could so 
easily spare.” 

“To be sure 1 will. What a thoughtless fellow I have 
been ! But — but — I fancied you would have asked me if 
you wanted it. Never mind, you’ll get it all in a lump. 
Let me see — how much will it come to? You are the best 
head going for arithmetic, Aunt Hilary. Do reckon it all 
up !” 

She did so, and the sum total made Ascott open his eyes 
wide. 

“ Upon my soul I had no idea it was so much. I’m very 
sorry, but I seem fairly cleaned out this quarter — only a 
few sovereigns left to keep the mill going. You shall have 
them, or half of them, and I’ll owe you the rest. Here !” 

He emptied on the table, without counting, four or five 
pounds. Hilary took two, asking him gravely “if he was 
sure he could spare so much. She did not wish to incon- 
venience him.” 

“ Oh, not at all ; and I wouldn’t mind if it did ; you have 
been good aunts to me.” 

He kissed her, with a sudden fit of compunction, and 
bade her good-night, looking as if he did not care to be 
“ bothered” any more. 

Hilary retired, more sad, more hopeless about him than 
if he had slammed the door in her face, or scolded her like 
a trooper. Had he met her seriousness in the same spirit, 
even though it had been a sullen or angry spirit — and lit- 
tle as she said he must have felt — she wished him to feel— 
that his aunts were displeased with him ; but that utterly 
unimpressible light-heartedness of his— there was no doing 
any thing with it. There was, so to speak, “ no catching 


134 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


hold” of Ascott. He meant no harm. She repeated over 
and over again that the lad meant no harm. He had no 
evil ways ; was always pleasant, good-natured, and affec- 
tionate, in his own careless fashion, but was no more to be 
relied on than a straw that every wind blows hither and 
thither, or, to use a common simile, a butterfly that never 
sees any thing farther than the nearest flower. His was, 
in short, the pleasure-loving temperament, not positively 
sinful or sensual, but still holding the pleasure as the great- 
est good ; and regarding what deeper natures call “ duty,” 
and find therein their strong-hold and consolation, as a 
mere bugbear, or a sentimental theory, or an impossible 
folly. 

Poor lad ! and he had the w r orld to fight with ; how 
would it use him? Even if no heavy sorrows for himself 
or others smote him, his handsome face would have to 
grow old, his strong frame to meet sickness — death. How 
would he do it ? That is the thought which always re- 
curs. What is the end of such men as these ? Alas ! the 
answer would come from hospital wards, alms-houses and 
work-houses, debtors’ prisons and lunatic asylums. 

To apprehensions like this — except the last, happily it 
was as yet too far off— Hilary had been slowly and sadly 
arriving about Ascott for weeks past ; and her conversation 
with him to-night seemed to make them darken down upon 
her with added gloom. As she went up stairs she set her 
lips together hard. 

“ I see there is nobody to do any thing except me. But 
I must not tell Johanna.” 

She lay long awake, planning every conceivable scheme 
for saving money, till at length, her wits sharpened by 
the desperation of the circumstances, there flashed upon 
her an idea that came out of a talk she had had with Eliz- 
abeth that morning. True, it was a perfectly new and un- 
tried chance — and a mere chance ; still it was right to 
overlook nothing. She would not have ventured to tell 
Selina of it for the world, and even to Johanna she only 
said — finding her as wakeful as herself — said it in a care- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


135 


less manner, as if it had relation to nothing, and she ex- 
pected nothing from it — 

“ I think, as I have nothing else to do, I will go and see 
Miss Balquidder to-morrow morning.” 


CHAPTER Xni. 

Miss Balquidder’s house was a handsome one, hand- 
somely furnished, and a neat little maid-servant showed 
Hilary at once into the dining-parlor, where the mistress 
sat before a business-like writing-table covered with letters, 
papers, etc., all arranged with that careful order in disor- 
der which indicates, even in the smallest things, the posses- 
sion of an accurate, methodical mind, than which there are 
few greater possessions either to its owner or to the world 
at large. 

Miss Balquidder was not a personable woman ; she had 
never been so even in youth ; and age had told its tale upon 
those large, strong features — “ thoroughly Scotch features” 
they would have been called by those who think all Scotch- 
women are necessarily big, raw-boned, and ugly, and have 
never seen that wonderfully noble beauty — not prettiness, 
but actual beauty in its highest physical as well as spirit- 
ual development — which is not seldom found across the 
Tweed. 

But, while there was nothing lovely, there was nothing 
unpleasant or uncomely in Miss Balquidder. Her large 
figure, in its plain black silk dress ; her neat white cap, 
from under which peeped the little round curls of flaxen 
hair, neither gray nor snowy, but real “ lint-white locks” 
still; and her good-humored, motherly look — motherly 
rather than old-maidish — gave an impression which may 
be best described by the word “ comfortable.” She was a 
“comfortable” woman. She had that quality — too rare, 
alas ! in all people, and rarest in women going solitary 
down the hill of life — of being able, out of the deep content 
of her own nature, to make other people the same. 


136 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Hilary was cheered in spite of herself ; it always conveys 
hope to the young, when in sore trouble, if they see the old 
looking happy. 

“Welcome, my dear! I was afraid you had forgotten 
your promise.” 

“ Oh no,” said Hilary, responding heartily to the hearty 
clasp of a hand large as a man’s, but soft as a woman’s. 

“ Why did you not come sooner ?” 

More than one possible excuse flashed through Hilary’s 
mind, but she was too honest to give it. She gave none at 
all. Nor did she like to leave the impression that this was 
merely a visit, when she knew she had only come from sec- 
ondary and personal motives. 

“May I tell you why I came to-day? Because I want 
advice and help, and I think you can give it, from some- 
thing I heard about you yesterday.” 

“ Indeed ! From whom ?” 

“In rather a roundabout way; from Mrs. Jones, who told 
our maid-servant.” 

“ The same girl I met on the staircase at your house ? 
I beg your pardon, but I know where you live, Miss Leaf ; 
your landlady happens to be an acquaintance of mine.” 

“ So she said ; and she told our Elizabeth that you were 
a rich and benevolent woman, who took a great interest in 
helping other women ; not in money” — blushing scarlet at 
the idea — “I don’t mean that, but in procuring them work. 
I want work — oh ! so terribly. If you only knew — ” 

“ Sit down, my dear” — for Hilary was trembling much, 
her voice breaking, and her eyes filling in spite of all her 
self-command. 

Miss Balquidder — who seemed accustomed to wait upon 
herself — went out of the room, and returned with cake and 
glasses ; then she took the wine from the sideboard, pour- 
ed some out for herself and Hilary, and began to talk. 

“ It is nearly my luncheon-time, and I am a great friend 
to regular eating and drinking. I never let any thing in- 
terfere with my own meals, or other folks’ either, if I can 
help it. I would as soon expect that fire to keep itself up 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


137 


without coals, as my mind to go on working if I don’t look 
after my body. You understand ? You seem to have good 
health, Miss Leaf. I hope you are a prudent girl, and take 
care of it.” 

“ I think I do” — and Hilary smiled. “ At any rate, my 
sister does for me, and also Elizabeth.” 

“ Ah ! I liked the look of that girl. If families did but 
know that the most useful patent of respectability they 
can carry about with them is their maid-servant ! That is 
how I always judge my new acquaintances.” 

“There’s reason in it too,” said Hilary, amused and drawn 
out of herself by the frank manner and the cordial voice — 
I use the adjective advisedly : none the less sweet because 
its good terse English had a decided Scotch accent, with 
here and there a Scotch word. Also there was about Miss 
Balquidder a certain dry humor essentially Scotch — nei- 
ther Irish “ wit” nor English “fun,” but Scotch humor; a 
little ponderous, perhaps, yet sparkling ; like the sparkles 
from a large lump of coal, red-warm at the heart, and ca- 
pable of warming a whole household, as many a time it had 
warmed the little household at Stowbury, for Robert Lyon 
had it in perfection. Like a waft as from old times, it 
made Hilary at once feel at home with Miss Balquidder. 

Equally, Miss Balquidder might have seen something in 
this girl’s patient, heroic, forlorn youth which reminded her 
of her own. Unreasoning as these sudden attractions ap- 
pear, there is often a hidden something beneath which in 
reality makes them both natural and probable, as was the 
case here. In half an hour these two women were sitting 
talking like old friends, and Hilary had explained her pres- 
ent position, needs, and desires. They ended in the one 
cry — familiar to how many thousands more of helpless 
young women— “ I want work !” 

Miss Balquidder listened thoughtfully. Hot that it was 
a newstory — alas ! she heard it every day; but there was 
something new in the telling of it ; such extreme directness 
and simplicity, such utter want of either false pride or false 
shame. Ho asking of favors, and yet no shrinking from 


i 38 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


well-meant kindness ; the poor woman speaking freely to 
the rich one, recognizing the common womanhood of both, 
and never supposing for an instant that mere money or po- 
sition could make any difference between them. 

The story ended, both turned, as was the character of 
both, to the practical application of it — what it was exact- 
ly that Hilary needed, and what Miss Balquidder could 
supply. 

The latter said, after a turn or two up and down the 
room with her hands behind her — the only masculine trick 
she had — 

“ My dear, before going farther, I ought to tell you one 
thing — I am not a lady.” 

Hilary looked at her in no little bewilderment. 

“ That is,” explained Miss Balquidder, laughing, “ not an 
educated gentlewoman like you. I made my money my- 
self — in trade. I kept an outfitter’s shop.” 

“You must have kept it uncommonly well,” was the in- 
voluntary reply, which, in its extreme honesty and naivete , 
was perhaps the best thing that Hilary could have said. 

“Well, perhaps I did,” and Miss Balquidder laughed her 
hearty laugh, betraying one of her few weaknesses — a con- 
sciousness of her own capabilities as a woman of business, 
and a pleasure at her own deserved success. 

“ Therefore, you see, I can not help you as a governess. 
Perhaps I would not if I could, for, so far as I see, a good 
clearance of one half the governesses into honest trades 
would be for their own benefit, and greatly to the benefit 
of the other half. But that’s not my affair. I only med- 
dle with things I understand. Miss Leaf, would you be 
ashamed of keeping a shop?” 

It is no reflection upon Hilary to confess that this point- 
blank question startled her. Her bringing up had been 
strictly among the professional class ; and in the provinces 
sharper than even in London is drawn the line between the 
richest tradesman who “keeps a shop,” and the poorest 
lawyer, doctor, or clergyman who ever starved in decent 
gentility. It had been often a struggle for Hilary Leaf’s 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


139 


girlish pride to have to teach A B C to little boys and girls 
whose parents stood behind counters ; but as she grew old- 
er she grew wiser, and intercourse with Robert Lyon had 
taught her much. She never forgot one day, when Selina 
asked him something about his grandfather or great-grand- 
father, and he answered quickly, smiling, “ Well, I suppose 
I had one, but I really never heard.” Nevertheless, it takes 
long to conquer entirely the class prejudices of years, nay, 
more, of generations. In spite of her will, Hilary felt her- 
self wince, and the color rush all over her face, at Miss Bal- 
quidder’s question. 

“ Take time to answer, and speak out, my dear. Don’t 
be afraid. You’ll not offend me.” 

The kindly, cheerful tone made Hilary recover her bal- 
ance immediately. 

“ I never thought of it before ; the possibility of such a 
thing did not occur to me ; but I hope I should not be 
ashamed of any honest work for which I was competent. 
Only — to serve in a shop — to wait upon strangers — I am 
so horribly shy of strangers.” And again the sensitive 
color rushed in a perfect tide over cheeks and forehead. 

Miss Balquidder looked, half amused, compassionately at 
her. 

“No, my dear, you would not make a good shop-woman 
— at least there are many who are better fitted for it than 
you ; and it is my maxim that people should try to find 
out, and to do, only that which they are best fitted for. If 
they did we might not have so many cases of proud despair 
and ambitious failure in the world. It looks very grand 
and interesting sometimes to try and do what you can’t do, 
and then tear your hair, and think the world has ill used 
you — very grand, but very siriy ; when all the while, per- 
haps, there is something else you can do thoroughly well, 
and the world will be exceedingly obliged to you for doing 
it, and not doing the other thing. As doubtless the world 
was to me, when, instead of being a mediocre musician, as 
1 once wished to be — it’s true, my dear — I took to keeping 
one of the best ladies’ outfitting warehouses in London.” 


140 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


While she talked her companion had quite recovered 
herself, and Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, what 
I will tell more briefly, if less graphically, than the good 
Scotchwoman, who, like all who have had a hard struggle 
in their youth, liked a little to dilate upon it in easy old 
age. 

Hard as it was, however, it had ended early, for at fifty 
she found herself a woman of independent property, with- 
out kith or kin, still active, energetic, and capable of en- 
joying life. She applied her mind to find out what she 
could best do with herself and her money. 

“I might have bought a landed estate to be inherited 
by — nobody ; or a house in Belgravia, and an opera-box, 
to be shared by — nobody. We all have our pet luxuries; 
none of these were exactly mine.” 

“No,” assented Hilary, somewhat abstractedly. She was 
thinking — if she could make a fortune, and — and give it 
away! — if, by any means, any honorable, upright heart 
could be made to understand that it did not signify, in re- 
ality, which side the money came from ; that it sometimes 
showed deeper, the very deepest attachment, when a proud, 
poor man had self-respect and courage enough to say to a‘ 
woman, “ I love you, and I will marry yon ; I am not such 
a coward as to be afraid of your gold.” 

But, oh ! what a ridiculous dream ! — and she sat there, 
the penniless Hilary Leaf, listening to Miss Balquidder, the 
rich lady, whose life seemed so easy. For the moment, per- 
haps, her own appeared hard. But she had hope, and she 
was young. She knew nothing of the years and years that 
had had to be lived through before those kind eyes looked 
as clear and cloudless as now ; before the voice had gained 
the sweet evenness of tone which she liked to listen to, and 
felt that it made her quiet and “good,” almost like Jo- 
hanna’s. 

“ You see, my dear,” said Miss Balquidder, “ when one 
has no duties, one must just make them; when we have 
nobody to care for us, we must take to caring for every 
body. I suppose” — here a slight pause indicated that this 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


141 


life, like all women’s lives, had had its tale, now long, long 
told — “ I suppose I was not meant to be a wife, but I am 
quite certain I was meant to be a mother. And” — with 
her peculiar, bright, humorous look — “ you’d be astonished, 
Miss Leaf, if you knew what lots of L children’ I have in all 
parts of the world.” 

Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, that finding, 
from her own experience, how great was the number, and 
how sore the trial, of young women who nowadays are 
obliged to work — obliged to forget that there is such a 
thing as the blessed privilege of being worked for — she 
had set herself, in her small way, to try and help them. 
Her pet project was to induce educated women to quit the 
genteel starvation of governess-ships for some good trade, 
thereby bringing higher intelligence into a class which 
needed, not the elevation of the work itself, which was 
comparatively easy and refined, but of the workers. She 
had therefore invested sum after sum of her capital in set- 
ting up various small shops in the environs of London, in 
her own former line, and others — stationers, lace-shops, etc. 
— trades which could be well carried on by women. Into 
the management of these she put as many young girls as 
she could find really fitted for it, or willing to learn, pay- 
ing them regular salaries, large or small, according to their 
deserts. 

“Fair work, fair pay; not one penny more or less; I 
never do it ; it would not be honest. I overlook each bus- 
iness myself, and it is carried on in my name. Sometimes 
it brings me in a little profit, sometimes not. Of course,” 
she added, smiling, “ I would rather have profits than loss- 
es ; still, I balance one against the other, and it leaves me 
generally a small interest for my money — two or three per 
cent., which is all I care about. Thus, you see, I and my 
young people make a fair bargain on both sides ; it’s no 
charity. I don’t believe in charity.” 

“No,” said Hilary, feeling her spirit rise. She was yet 
young enough, yet enough unworn by the fight to feel the 
deliciousness of work — honest work for honest pay. “I 


142 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


think I could do it,” she added. “ I think, with a little 
practice, I really could keep a shop.” 

“ At all events, perhaps you could do what I find more 
difficult to get done, and well done, for it requires a far 
higher class of women than generally apply : you could 
keep the accounts of a shop ; you should be the head, and 
it would be easy to find the hands. Let me see ; there is 
a young lady, she has managed my stationer’s business at 
Kensington these two years, and now she is going to be 
married. Are you good at figures? Do you understand 
book-keeping ?” 

And suddenly changing into the woman of business, and 
one who was evidently quite accustomed both to arrange 
and command, Miss Balquidder put Hilary through a sort 
of extempore arithmetical catechism, from which she came 
off with flying colors. 

“I only wish there were more like you. I wish there 
were more young ladies brought up like — ” 

“ Like boys !” said Hilary, laughing, “ for I always used 
to say that was my case.” 

“ No, I never desire to see young women made into men.” 
And Miss Balquidder seemed a little scandalized. “But 
I do wish girls were taught fewer accomplishments, and 
more reading, writing, and arithmetic; were made as ac- 
curate, orderly, and able to help themselves as boys are. 
But to business. Will you take the management of my 
stationer’s shop ?” 

Hilary’s breath came hard and fast. Much as she had 
longed for work, to get this sort of work — to keep a sta- 
tioner’s shop ! What would her sisters say ? what would 
he say? But she dared not think of that just now. 

“ How much should I be able to earn, do you think ?” 

Miss Balquidder considered a moment, and then said, 
rather shortly, for it was not exactly acting on her own 
principles; she knew the pay was above the work. “I 
will give you a hundred a year.” 

A hundred a year ! actually certain, and over and above 
any other income. It seemed a fortune to poor Hilary. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


143 


‘ Will you give me a day or two to tliink about it and 
consult my sisters?” 

She spoke quietly, but Miss Balquidder could see how 
agitated she was ; how she evidently struggled with many 
feelings that would be best struggled with alone. The 
good old lady rose. 

“ Take your own time, my dear ; I will keep the ‘situation 
open for you for one week from this date. And now I must 
send you away, for I have a great deal to do.” 

They parted, quite like friends; and Hilary went out, 
walking quickly, feeling neither the wind nor the rain. 
Yet when she reached No. 15 she could not bring herself 
to enter, but took another turn or two round the Crescent, 
trying to be quite sure of her own mind before she opened 
the matter to her sisters. And there was one little battle 
to be fought which the sisters did not know. 

It was perhaps foolish, seeing she did not belong to him 
in any open way, and he had no external right over her 
life or her actions, that she should go back and back to the 
question, “ What would Robert Lyon say ?” 

He knew she earned her daily bread; sometimes this 
had seemed to vex and annoy him, but it must be done ; 
and when a thing was inevitable, it was not Mr. Lyon’s 
way to say much about it. But being a governess was an 
accredited and customary mode of a young lady’s earning 
her livelihood. This was different. If he should think it 
too public, too unfeminine : he had such a horror of a wom- 
an’s being any thing but a woman, as strong and brave as 
she could, but in a womanly way ; doing any thing, how- 
ever painful, that she was obliged to do, but never out of 
choice or bravado, or the excitement of stepping out of 
her own sphere into man’s. Would Robert Lyon think 
less of her, Hilary, because she had to learn to take care 
of herself, to protect herself, and to act in so many ways 
for herself, contrary to the natural and right order of 
things? That old order — God forbid it should ever 
change ! — which ordained that the women should be 
“keepers at home;” happy rulers of that happy little 


144 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


world, which seemed as far off as the next world from this 
poor Hilary. 

“ What if he should look down upon me ? What if he 
should return and find me different from what he expect- 
ed ?” And bitter tears burned in her eyes as she walked 
rapidly and passionately along the deserted street. Then 
a revulsion came. 

“No; love is worth nothing that is not worth every 
thing, and to be trusted through every thing. If he could 
forget me — could love any one better than me — me my- 
self, no matter what I was — ugly or pretty, old or young, 
rich or poor — I would not care for his love. It would 
not be worth my having ; I’d let it go. Robert, though it 
broke my heart, I’d let you go.” 

Her eyes flashed ; her poor little hand clenched itself 
under her shawl ; and then, as a half reproach, she heard 
in fancy the steady loving voice — which could have calm- 
ed her wildest paroxysm of passion and pain — “ You must 
trust me, Hilary.” 

Yes, he was a man to be trusted. No doubt very much 
like other men, and by no means such a hero to the world 
at large as this fond girl made him out to be ; but Robert 
Lyon had, with all people, and under all circumstances, 
the character of reliableness. He had also — you might 
read it in his face — a quality equally rare, faithfulness. 
Not merely sincerity, but faithfulness; the power of con- 
ceiving one clear purpose or one strong love — in unity is 
strength — and of not only keeping true to it at the time, 
but of holding fast to it with a single-minded persistency 
that never even takes in the idea of voluntary change, as 
long as persistency is right or possible. 

“ Robert, Robert !” sobbed this forlorn girl, as if slowly 
waking up to a sense of her forlornness, and of the almost 
universal fickleness — not actual falseness, but fickleness, 
which prevails in the world and among mankind. “ Oh 
Robert, be faithful ! faithful to yourself — faithful to me !” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


145 


CHAPTER XIV. 

When Miss Hilary reached home, Elizabeth opened the 
door to her ; the parlor was deserted. 

Miss Leaf had gone to lie down, and Miss Selina was 
away to see the Lord Mayor’s Show with Mr. Peter As- 
cott. 

“ With Mr. Peter Ascott !” Hilary was a little sur- 
prised, but on second thoughts she found it natural ; Se- 
lina was glad of any amusement — to her, not only the nar- 
rowness, but the dullness of their poverty was inexpressi- 
bly galling. “ She will be back to dinner, I suppose ?” 

“ I don’t know,” said Elizabeth, briefly. 

Had Miss Hilary been less preoccupied, she would have 
noticed something not quite right about the girl — some- 
thing that at any other time would have aroused the di- 
rect question, “ What is the matter, Elizabeth ?” For Miss 
Hilary did not consider it beneath her dignity to observe 
that things might occasionally go wrong with this solita- 
ry young woman, away from her friends, and exposed to 
all the annoyances of London lodgings ; that many trifles 
might happen to worry and perplex her. If the mistress 
could not set them right, she could at least give the word 
of kindly sympathy, as precious to “ a poor servant” as to 
the queen on her throne. 

This time, however, it came not, and Elizabeth disap- 
peared below stairs immediately. 

The girl was revolving in her own mind a difficult eth- 
ical question. To-day, for the first time in her life, she 
had not “ told Miss Hilary every thing.” Two things had 
happened, and she could not make up her mind as to 
whether she ought to communicate them. 

Now Elizabeth had a conscience, by nature a very ten- 
der one, and which, from circumstances, had been cultiva- 
ted into a much higher sensitiveness than, alas ! is com- 


146 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


moil among her class, or, indeed, in any class- This, an 
error, was Miss Hilary’s doing : it probably caused Eliza* 
betli a few more miseries, and vexations, and painful shocks 
in the world than she would have had had she imbibed 
only the ordinary tone of morality, especially the morality 
of ordinary domestic servants ; but it was an error upon 
which, in summing up her life, the Recording Angel would 
gravely smile. 

The first trial had happened at breakfast-time. Ascott, 
descending earlier than his wont, had asked her, Did any 
gentleman, short and dirty, with a hooked-nose, inquire for 
him yesterday ? 

Elizabeth thought a minute, and recollected that some 
person answering the above not too flattering description 
had called, but refused to leave his name, saying he did 
not know the ladies, but was a particular friend of Mr. 
Leaf’s. 

Ascott laughed. “So he is — a very particular friend; 
but my aunts would not fancy him, and I don’t want him 
to come here. Say, if he calls, that I’m gone out of town.” 

“Very well, sir. Shall you start before dinner?” said 
Elizabeth, whose practical mind immediately recurred to 
that meal, and to the joint, always contrived to be hot on 
the days that Ascott dined at home. 

He seemed excessively tickled. “Bless you, you are 
the greatest innocent ! Just say what I tell you, and nev- 
er mind — hush ! here’s Aunt Hilary.” 

And Miss Hilary’s anxious face, white with long wake- 
fulness, had put out of Elizabeth’s head the answer that 
was coming ; indeed, the matter slipped from her mind al- 
together, in consequence of another circumstance which 
gave her much more perplexity. 

During her young mistress’s absence, supposing Miss 
Selina out too, and Miss Leaf up stairs, she had come sud- 
denly into the parlor without knocking. There, to her 
amazement, she saw Miss Selina and Mr. Ascott standing, 
in close conversation, over the fire. They were so engross- 
ed that they did not notice her, ard she shut the door 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


147 


again immediately. But what confounded her was that 
she was certain, absolutely certain, Mr. Ascott had his arm 
round Miss Selina’s waist ! 

Now that was no business of hers, and yet the faithful 
domestic was a good deal troubled ; still more so when, 
by Miss Leaf’s excessive surprise at hearing of the visitor 
who had come and gone, carrying Miss Selina away to the 
city, she was certain the elder sister was completely in 
the dark as to any thing going to happen in the family. 

Could it be a wedding ? Could Miss Selina really love, 
and be intending to marry, that horrid little man ? For, 
strange to say, this young servant had, what many a 
young beauty of rank and fashion has not, or has lost for- 
ever — the true, pure, womanly creed, that loving and mar- 
rying are synonymous terms; that to let a man put his 
arm round your waist when you do not intend to marry 
him, or to intend to marry him for money or any thing 
else when you do not really love him, are things quite im- 
possible and incredible to any womanly mind. A creed 
somewhat out of date, and perhaps existing only in stray 
nooks of the world ; but, thank God ! it does exist. Hila- 
ry had it, and she had taught it to Elizabeth. 

“I wonder whether Miss Hilary knows of this? I won- 
der what she would say to it ?” 

And now arose the perplexing ethical question aforesaid 
as to whether Elizabeth ought to tell her. 

It was one of Miss Hilary’s doctrines — the same for the 
kitchen as the parlor, nay, preached strongest in the kitch- 
en, where the mysteries of the parlor are often so cruelly 
exposed — that a secret accidentally found out should be 
kept as sacred as if actually confided ; also, that the secret 
of an enemy should no more be betrayed than that of a 
beloved and trusting friend. 

“ Miss Selina isn’t my enemy,” smiled Elizabeth, “ but 
I’m not overfond of her, and so I’d rather not tell of her, 
or vex her if I can help it. Anyhow, I’ll keep it to my- 
self for a bit.” 

But the secret weighed heavily upon her, and, besides, 


148 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


her honest heart felt a certain diminution of respect for 
Miss Selina. What could she see to like in that common- 
looking, commonplace man, whom she could not have met 
a dozen times, of whose domestic life she knew nothing, 
and whose personality Elizabeth, with the sharp observa- 
tion often found in her class, probably because coarse peo- 
ple do not care to hide their coarseness from servants, had 
(speedily set down at her own valuation — “Neither carriage 
nor horses, nor nothing, will ever make him a gentleman !” 

He, however, sent Miss Selina home magnificently in the 
said carriage ; Ascott with her, who had been picked up 
somewhere in the City, and who came into his dinner with- 
out the slightest reference to going “ out of town.” 

But in spite of her Lord Mayor’s Show, and the great 
attention which she said she had received from “ various 
members of the Common Council of the City of London,” 
Miss Selina was, for her, meditative, and did not talk quite 
so much as usual. There was in the little parlor an un- 
comfortable atmosphere, as if all of them had something 
on their minds. Hilary felt the ice must be broken, and 
if she did not do it nobody else would. So she said, steal- 
ing her hand into Johanna’s, under shelter of the dim fire- 
light, 

“ Selina, I wanted to have a little family consultation. 
I have just received an offer.” 

“ An offer !” repeated Miss Selina, with a visible start. 
“ Oh, I forgot ; you went to see your friend, Miss Balquid- 
der, this morning. Did you get any thing out of her? 
Has she any nephews and nieces wanting a governess?” 

“She has no relations at all. But I will just tell you 
the story of my visit.” 

“ I hope it’s interesting,” said Ascott, who was lying on 
the sofa, half asleep, his general habit after dinner. He 
woke, however, during his Aunt Hilary’s relation, and 
when she reached its climax, that the offer was for her to 
manage a stationer’s shop, he burst out, heartily laughing: 

“ Well, that is a rich idea. I’ll come and buy of you. 
You’ll look so pretty standing behind a counter.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


149 


But Selina said, angrily, “ You can not even think of 
such a thing. It would be a disgrace to the family.” 

“No,” said Hilary, clasping tightly her eldest sister’s 
hand — they two had already talked the matter over, “ I 
can not see any disgrace. If our family is so poor that 
the women must earn their living as well as the men, all 
we have to see is that it should be honestly earned. What 
do you say, Ascott ?” 

She looked earnestly at him ; she wanted sorely to find 
out what he really thought. 

But Ascott took it, as he did every thing, very easily. 
“ I don’t see why Aunt Selina should make such a fuss. 
Why need you do any thing, Aunt Hilary ? Can’t we 
hold out a little longer, and live upon tick till I get into 
practice ? Of course, I shall then take care of you all ; I’m 
the head of the family. How horridly dark this room is !” 

He started up, and gave the fire a fierce poke, w r hich 
consumed in five minutes a large lump of coal that Hilary 
had hoped — oh, cruel, sordid economy — would have lasted 
half the evening. 

She broke the uneasy silence which followed by asking 
Johanna to give her opinion. 

J ohanna roused herself and spoke : 

“ Ascott says right ; he is the head of the family, and 
by-and-by, I trust, will take care of us all. But he is not 
able to do it now, and meantime we must live.” 

“ To be sure we must, auntie.” 

“ I mean, my boy, we must live honestly ; we must not 
run into debt and her voice sharpened as with the re- 
flected horror of her young days — if, alas ! there ever had 
been any youth for Henry Leaf’s eldest daughter. “No, 
Ascott, out of debt out of danger. For myself” — she laid 
her thin old fingers on his arm, and looked up at him with 
a pitiful mixture of reliance and hopelessness — “I would 
rather see you breaking stones in the road than living like 
a gentleman, as you call it, and a swindler, as I call it, upon 
other people’s money.” 

Ascott sprang up, coloring violently. “ You use strong 


150 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


language, Aunt Johanna. Never mind. I dare say you 
are right. However, it’s no business of mine. Good-night, 
for I have an engagement.” 

Hilary said, gravely, she wished he would stay and join 
in the family consultation. 

“ Oh no ; I hate talking over things. Settle it among 
yourselves. As I said, it isn’t my business.” 

u You don’t care, then, what becomes of us all ? I some- 
times begin to think so.” 

Struck by the tone, Ascott stopped in the act of putting 
on his lilac kid gloves. “ What have I done ? I may be 
a very bad fellow, but I’m not quite so bad as that, Aunt 
Hilary.” 

“ She didn’t mean it, my boy,” said Aunt Johanna, ten- 
derly. 

He was moved, more by the tenderness than the reproach. 
He came and kissed his eldest aunt in that warm-hearted, 
impulsive way, which had won him forgiveness for many 
a boyish fault. It did so now. 

“ I know I’m not half good enough to you, auntie, but I 
mean to be. I mean to work hard, and be a rich man some 
day, and then you may be sure I shall not let my Aunt 
Hilary keep a shop. Now good-night, for I must meet a 
fellow on business — really business — that may turn out 
good for us all, I assure you.” 

He went away whistling, with that air of untroubled, 
good-natured liveliness peculiar to Ascott Leaf, which made 
them say continually that he was “ only a boy,” living a 
boy’s life, as thoughtless and as free. When his handsome 
face disappeared the three women sat down again round 
the fire. 

They made no comments on him whatever; they were 
women, and he was their own. But — passing him over as 
if he had never existed — Hilary began to explain to her 
sisters all particulars of her new scheme for maintaining 
the family. She told these details in a matter-of-fact way, 
as already arranged, and finally hoped Selina would make 
no more objections. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


151 


“ It is a thing quite impossible,” said Selina, with dig- 
nity. 

“ Why impossible ? I can certainly do the work, and it 
can not make me less of a lady. Besides, we had better 
not be ladies if we can not be honest ones. And, Selina, 
where is the money to come from? We have none in the 
house; we can not get any till Christmas.” 

“Opportunities might occur. We have friends.” 

“ Not one in London — except, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, and I 
would not ask him for a farthing. You don’t see, Selina, 
how horrible it would be to be helped, unless by some one 
dearly loved. I couldn’t bear it ! I’d rather beg — starve 
— almost steal !” 

“ Don’t be violent, child.” 

“ Oh, but it’s hard !” and the cry of long-smothered pain 
burst out. “ Hard enough to have to earn one’s bread in 
a way one doesn’t like ; harder still to have to be parted 
from Johanna from Monday morning till Saturday night. 
But it must be. I’ll go. It’s a case between hunger, debt, 
and work ; the first is unpleasant, the second impossible, 
the third is my only alternative. You must consent, Se- 
lina, for I will do it.” 

“ Don’t !” Selina spoke more gently, and not without 
some natural emotion. “ Don’t disgrace me, child ; for I 
may as well tell you — I meant to do so to-night — Mr. As- 
cott has made me an offer of marriage, and I — I have ac- 
cepted it.” 

Had a thunderbolt fallen in the middle of the parlor at 
No. 15 , its inmates — that is, two of them — could not have 
been more astounded. 

No doubt this surprise was a great instance of simplicity 
on their part. Many women would have prognosticated, 
planned the thing from the first ; thought it a most excel- 
lent match ; seen glorious visions of the house in Russell 
Square, of the w T ealth and luxury that would be the por- 
tion of “ dear Selina,” and the general benefit that the mar- 
riage would be to the whole Leaf family. 

But these two were different from others. They only 


152 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


saw their sister Selina, a woman no longer young, and not 
without her peculiarities, going to be married to a man she 
knew little or nothing about — a man whom they themselves 
had endured rather than liked, and for the sake of grati- 
tude. He was trying enough merely as a chance visitor ; 
but to look upon Mr. Ascott as a brother-in-law, as a hus- 
band — 

“ Oh, Selina ! you can not be in earnest ?” 

“ Why not ? Why should I not be married as well as 
my neighbors ?” said she, sharply. 

Nobody arguing that point, both being, indeed, too be- 
wildered to argue at all, she continued, majestically, 

“ I assure you, sisters, there could not be a more unex- 
ceptionable offer. It is true, Mr. Ascott’s origin was rather 
humble ; but I can overlook that. In his present wealth, 
and with his position and character, he will make the best 
of husbands.” 

Not a word was answered; what could be answered? 
Selina was free to marry if she liked, and whom she liked. 
Perhaps, from her nature, it was idle to expect her to mar- 
ry in any other way than this ; one of the thousand and 
one unions where the man desires a handsome, lady-like 
wife for the head of his establishment, and the woman 
wishes an elegant establishment to be mistress of; so 
they strike a bargain — possibly as good as most other bar- 
gains. 

Still, with one faint lingering of hope, Hilary asked if she 
had quite decided. 

“ Quite. He wrote to me last night, and I gave him his 
answer this morning.” 

Selina certainly had not troubled any body with her 
“ love affairs.” It was entirely a matter of business. 

The sisters saw at once that she had made up her mind. 
Henceforward there could be no criticism of Mr. Peter As- 
cott. 

Now all was told, she talked freely of her excellent pros- 
pects. 

“ He has behaved handsomely — very much so. He makes 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


153 


a good settlement on me, and says how happy he will be 
to help my family, so as to enable you always to make a 
respectable appearance.” 

“We are exceedingly obliged to him.” 

“ Don’t be sharp, Hilary. He means well. And he must 
feel that this marriage is a sort of — ahem ! condescension 
on my part, which I never should have dreamed of twenty 
years ago.” I 

Selina sighed : could it be at the thought of that twenty 
years ago ? Perhaps, shallow as she seemed, this woman 
might once have had some fancy, some ideal man whom 
she expected to meet and marry ; possibly a very different 
sort of man from Mr. Peter Ascott. However, the sigh was 
but momentary ; she plunged back again into all the ar- 
rangements of her wedding, every one of which, down to 
the wedding-dress, she had evidently decided. 

“And therefore you see,” she added, as if the unimport- 
ant, almost forgotten item of discussion had suddenly oc- 
curred to her, “ it’s quite impossible that my sister should 
keep a shop. I shall tell Mr. Ascott, and you will see what 
he says to it.” 

But when Mr. Ascott appeared next day in solemn state 
as an accepted lover he seemed to care very little about 
the matter. He thought it was a good thing for every 
body to be independent ; did not see why young women — ■ 
he begged pardon, young ladies — should not earn their 
own bread if they liked. He only wished that the shop 
were a little farther off than Kensington, and hoped the 
name of Leaf would not be put over the door. 

But the bride-elect, indignant and annoyed, begged her 
lover to interfere, and prevent the scheme from being car- 
ried out. 

“ Don’t vex yourself, my dear Selina,” said he, dryly — 
how Hilary started to hear this stranger use the household 
name — “ but I can’t see that it’s my business to interfere. 
I marry you ; I don’t marry your whole family.” 

“ Mr. Ascott is quite right ; we will end the subject,” 
said Johanna, with grave dignity j while Hilary sat with 


154 


mistress and maid. 


burning cheeks, thinking that, miserable as the family had 
been, it had never till now known real degradation. 

But her heart was very sore that day. In the morning 
had come the letter from India, never omitted, never de- 
layed ; Robert Lyon was punctual as clock-work in every 
thing he did. It came, but this month it was a short and 
somewhat sad letter — hinting of failing health, uncertain 
prospects ; full of a bitter longing to come home, and a 
dread that it would be years before that longing was real- 
ized. 

“ My only consolation is,” he wrote, for once betraying 
himself a little, “ that, however hard my life out here may 
be, I bear it alone.” 

But that consolation was not so easy to Hilary. That 
they two should be wasting their youth apart, when just 
a little heap of yellow coins — of which men like Mr. Ascott 
had such profusion — would bring them together, and, let 
trials be many or poverty hard, give them the unutterable 
joy of being once more face to face and heart to heart — 
oh, it was sore — sore ! 

Yet when she went up from the parlor, where the newly- 
affianced couple sat together, “ making-believe” a passion 
that did not exist, and acting out the sham courtship, prop- 
er for the gentleman to pay and the lady to receive — when 
she shut her bedroom door, and there, sitting in the cold, 
read again and again Robert Lyon’s letter to Johanna, so 
good, so honest ; so sad, yet so bravely enduring — Hilary 
was comforted. She felt that true love, in its most unsatis- 
fied longings, its most cruel delays, nay, even its sharpest 
agonies of hopeless separation, is sweeter ten thousand times 
than the most “ respectable” of loveless marriages such as 
this. 

So, at the week’s end, Hilary went patiently to her work 
at Kensington, and Selina began the preparations for her 
wedding 


MISTEESS AN!) MAID. 


155 


CHAPTER XV. 

In relating so much about her mistresses, I have lately 
seemed to overlook Elizabeth Hand. 

She was a person easy enough to be overlooked. She 
never put herself forward, not even now, when Miss Hilary’s 
absence caused the weight of housekeeping and domestic 
management to fall chiefly upon her. She went about her 
duties as soberly and silently as she had done in her girl- 
hood ; even Miss Leaf could not draw her into much de- 
monstrativeness : she was one of those people who never 
“ come out” till they are strongly needed, and then — But 
it remained to be proved what this girl would be. 

Years afterward Hilary remembered with what a curious 
reticence Elizabeth used to go about in those days : how 
she remained as old-fashioned as ever ; acquired no London 
ways, no fripperies of dress or flippancies of manner. Also, 
that she never complained of any thing, though the dis- 
comforts of her lodging-house life must have been great — 
greater than her mistresses had any idea of at the time. 
Slowly, out of her rough, unpliant girlhood, was forming 
that character of self-reliance and self-control, which, in all 
ranks, makes of some women the helpers rather than the 
helped, the laborers rather than the pleasure-seekers ; wom- 
en whose constant lot it seems to be to walk on the shad- 
owed side of life, to endure rather than to enjoy. 

Elizabeth had very little actual enjoyment. She made 
no acquaintances, and never asked for holidays. Indeed, 
she did not seem to care for any. Her great treat was 
when, on a Sunday afternoon, Miss Hilary sometimes took 
her to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s, when her pleasure 
and gratitude always struck her mistress — nay, even sooth- 
ed her, and won her from her own many anxieties. It is 
such a blessing to be able to make any other human bo 
ing, even for an hour or two, entirely happy ! 


156 


MISTBESS AND MAID. 


Except these bright Sundays, Elizabeth’s whole time 
was spent in waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to 
grow suddenly frail and old. It might be that living 
without her child six days out of the seven was a greater 
trial than had at first appeared to the elder sister, who 
until now had never parted with her since she was born ; 
or it was perhaps a more commonplace and yet natural 
cause, the living in London lodgings, without even a 
change of air from room to room, and the want of little 
comforts and luxuries, which, with all Hilary’s care, were 
as impossible as ever to their limited means. 

For Selina’s engagement, which, as a matter of deco- 
rum, she had insisted should last six months, did not less- 
en expenses. Old gowns were shabby, and omnibuses im- 
possible to the future Mrs. Ascott of Russell Square ; and 
though, to do her justice, she spent as little as to her self- 
pleasing nature was possible, still she spent something. 

“It’s the last; I shall never cost you any more,” she 
would say, complacently ; and revert to that question of 
absorbing interest, her trousseau , an extremely handsome 
one, provided liberally by Mr. Ascott. Sorely had this ar- 
rangement jarred upon the pride of the Leaf family ; yet 
it was inevitable. But no personal favors would the oth- 
er two sisters have accepted from Mr. Ascott, even had he 
offered them — which he did not — save a dress each for the 
marriage, and a card for the marriage-breakfast, which, he 
also arranged, was to take place at a hotel. 

So, in spite of the expected wedding, there was little 
change in the dull life that went on at No. 15. Its only 
brightness was when Miss Hilary came home from Satur- 
day to Monday. And in those brief glimpses, when, as 
was natural, she on her side, and they on theirs, put on 
their best face, so to speak, each trying to hide from the 
other any special care, it so fell out that Miss Hilary nev- 
er discovered a thing which, week by week, Elizabeth re- 
solved to speak to her about, and yet never could. For it 
was not her own affair; it seemed like presumptuously 
meddling in the affairs of the family. Above all, it in* 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


157 


volved the necessity of something which looked like tale- 
bearing and backbiting of a person she disliked, and there 
was in Elizabeth — servant as she was — an instinctive chiv- 
alrous honor which made her especially anxious to be just 
to her enemies. 

Enemy, however, is a large word to use ; and yet day by 
day her feelings grew more bitter toward the person con- 
cerned — namely, Mr. Ascott Leaf. It was not from any 
badness in him : he was the sort of young man always like- 
ly to be a favorite with what would be termed his “ infe- 
riors;” easy, good-tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a 
good deal of trouble certainly, but giving it so agreeably 
that few servants would have grumbled, and paying for it 
— as he apparently thought every thing could be paid for 
— with a pleasant word and a handful of silver. 

But Elizabeth’s distaste for him had deeper roots. The 
principal one was his exceeding indifference to his aunts’ 
affairs, great and small, from the marriage, which he briefly 
designated as a “jolly lark,” to the sharp economies which, 
even with the addition of Miss Hilary’s salary, were still 
requisite. None of these latter did he ever seem to no- 
tice, except when they pressed upon himself ; when he nei- 
ther scolded nOr argued, but simply went out and avoided 
them. 

He was now absent from home more than ever, and ap- 
parently tried as much as possible to keep the household 
in the dark as to his movements — leaving at uncertain 
times, never saying what hour he would be back, or if he 
said so, never keeping to his word. This was the more an- 
noying, as there were a number of people continually in- 
quiring for him, hanging about the house, and waiting to 
see him “ on business and some of these occasionally 
commented on the young gentleman in such unflattering 
terms that Elizabeth was afraid they would reach the ear 
of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward tried always to attend to 
the door herself. 

But Mrs. Jones was a wide-awake woman. She had not 
let lodgings for thirty years for nothing. Ere long she 


158 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


discovered, and took good care to inform Elizabeth of her 
discovery, that Mr. Ascott Leaf was what is euphuistically 
termed “ in difficulties.” 

And here one word, lest in telling this poor lad’s story I 
may be supposed to tell it harshly or uncharitably, as if 
there was no crime greater than that which a large por- 
tion of society seems to count as none; as if, at the merest 
mention of the ugly word debt, this rabid author flew out, 
and made all the ultra-virtuous persons whose history is 
here told fly out like turkeys after a bit of red cloth, which 
is a very harmless scrap of red cloth after all. 

Most true, some kind of debt deserves only compassion. 
The merchant suddenly failing ; the tenderly reared fam- 
ily who by some strange blunder or unkind kindness have 
been kept in ignorance of their real circumstances, and been 
spending pounds for which there was only pence to pay ; 
the individuals, men or women, who, without any laxity of 
principle, are such utter children in practice that they have 
to learn the value and use of money by hard experience, 
much as a child does, and are little better than children in 
all that concerns l. s. d. to the end of their days. 

But these are debtors by accident, not error. The de- 
liberate debtor, who orders what he knows he has no means 
of paying for; the pleasure-loving debtor, who can not re- 
nounce one single luxury for conscience’ sake; the well- 
meaning, lazy debtor, who might make ‘ l ends meet,” but 
does not, simply because he will not take the trouble ; upon 
such as these it is right to have no mercy — they deserve 
none. 

To which of these classes young Ascott Leaf belonged 
his story will show. I tell it, or rather let it tell itself, and 
point its own moral; it is the story of hundreds and thou- 
sands. 

That a young fellow should not enjoy his youth would be 
hard ; that it should not be pleasant to him to dress well, 
live well, and spend with open hand upon himself as well as 
others, no one will question. No one would ever wish it 
otherwise. Many a kindly spendthrift of twenty-one makes 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


159 


a prudent paterfamilias at forty, while a man who in his 
twenties showed a purposeless niggardliness, would at six- 
ty grow into the most contemptible miser alive. There is 
something even in the thoughtless liberality of youth to 
which one’s heart w arms, even while one’s wisdom reproves. 
But what struck Elizabeth was that Ascott’s liberalities 
were always toward himself, and himself only. 

Sometimes when she took in a parcel of new clothes, 
while others yet unpaid for were tossing in wasteful disor- 
der about his room, or when she cleaned indefinite pairs of 
handsome boots, and washed dozens of the finest cambric 
pocket-handkerchiefs, her spirit grew hot within her to re- 
member Miss Hilary’s countless wants and contrivances in 
the matter of dress, and all the little domestic comforts 
which Miss Leaf’s frail health required — things which nev- 
er once seemed to cross the nephew’s imagination. Of 
course not, it will be said ; how could a young man be ex- 
pected to trouble himself about these things ? 

But they do, though. Answer, many a widow’s son ; 
many a heedful brother of orphan sisters ; many a solitary 
clerk living and paying his way upon the merest pittance ; 
is it not better to think of others than one’s self? Can a 
man, even a young man, find his highest happiness in mere 
personal enjoyment ? 

However, let me cease throwing these pebbles of preach- 
ing under the wheels of my story ; as it moves on it will 
preach enough for itself. 

Elizabeth’s annoyances, suspicions, and conscience-pricks 
as to whether she ought or ought not to communicate both, 
came to an end at last. Gradually she made up her mind 
that, even if it did look like tale-bearing, on the following 
Saturday night Miss Hilary must know all. 

It was an anxious week, for Miss Leaf had fallen ill. Not 
seriously; and she never complained until her sister had 
left, when she returned to her bed and did not again rise. 
She would not have Miss Hilary sent for, nor Miss Selina, 
who was away paying a ceremonious prenuptial visit to 
Mr. Ascott’s partner’s wife at Dulwich. 


160 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ I don’t want any thing that you can not do for me. 
You are becoming a first-rate nurse, Elizabeth,” she said, 
with that passive, peaceful smile which almost frightened 
the girl ; it seemed as if she were slipping away from this 
world and all its cares into another existence. Elizabeth 
felt that to tell her any thing about her nephew’s affairs 
was perfectly impossible. How thankful she was that in 
the quiet of the sick-room her mistress was kept in igno- 
ranee of the knocks and inquiries at the door, and espe- 
cially of a certain ominous paper which had fallen into Mrs. 
Jones’s hands, and informed her, as she took good care to 
inform Elizabeth, that any day “the bailiffs” might be aft- 
er her young master. 

“And the sooner the whole set of you clear out of my 
house the better; I am a decent, respectable woman,” said 
Mrs. Jones, that very morning ; and Elizabeth had had to 
beg her as a favor not to disturb her sick mistress, but to 
wait one day, till Miss Hilary came home. 

Also, when Ascott, ending with a cheerful and careless 
countenance his ten minutes’ after -breakfast chat in his 
aunt’s room, had met Elizabeth on the staircase, he had 
stopped to bid her say if any body wanted him he was 
gone to Birmingham, and would not be home till Monday. 
And on Elizabeth’s hesitating, she having determined to 
tell no more of these involuntary lies, he had been very 
angry, and then stooped to entreaties, begging her to do as 
he asked, or it would be the ruin of him — which she under- 
stood well enough when, all the day, she — grown painful- 
ly wise, poor girl ! — watched a Je wish-looking man hang- 
ing about the house, and noticing every body that went in 
or out of it. 

How, sitting at Miss Leaf’s window, she fancied she saw 
this man disappear into the gin-palace opposite, and at the 
same moment a figure darted hurriedly round the street- 
corner and into the door of Ho. 15 . 

Elizabeth looked to see if her mistress were asleep, and 
then crept quietly out of the room, shutting the door after 
her. Listening, she heard the sound of the latch-key, and 
of some one coming stealthily up stairs. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


161 


“ Hollo ! Oh, it’s only you, Elizabeth.” 

“ Shall I light your candle, sir ?” 

But when she did the sight was not pleasant. Drenched 
with rain, his collar pulled up, and his hat slouched, so as 
in some measure to act as a disguise, breathless and trem- 
bling — hardly any body would have recognized in this dis- 
creditable object that gentlemanly young man, Mr. Ascott 
Leaf. 

He staggered into his room and threw himself across the 
bed. 

“ Do you want any thing, sir ?” said Elizabeth, from the 
door. 

“ No — yes — stay a minute. Elizabeth, are you to bo 
trusted ?” 

“ I hope I am, sir.” 

“ The bailiffs are after me. I’ve just dodged them. If 
they know I’m here the game’s all up — and it will kill my 
aunt.” . 

Shocked as she was, Elizabeth was glad to hear him say 
that — glad to see the burst of emotion with which he flung 
himself down on the pillow, muttering all sorts of hopeless 
self-accusations. 

“ Come, sir, ’tis no use taking on so,” said she, much as 
she would have spoken to a child, for there was something 
childish rather than manlike in Ascott’s distress. Never- 
theless, she pitied him with the unreasoning pity a kind 
heart gives to any creature who, blameworthy or not, has 
fallen into trouble. “ What do you mean to do ?” 

“Nothing. I’m cleaned out. And I haven’t a friend in 
the world.” 

He turned his face to the wall in perfect despair. 

Elizabeth tried hard not to sit in judgment upon what 
the Catechism would call her “ betters,” and yet her own 
strong instinct of almost indefinite endurance turned with 
something approaching contempt from this weak, light- 
some nature, broken by the first touch of calamity. 

“ Come, it’s no use making things worse than they are. 
If nobody knows that you are here, lock your door and 


162 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


keep quiet. I’ll bring you some dinner when I bring up 
missis’s tea, and not even Mrs. Jones will be any the 
wiser.” 

“ You’re a brick, Elizabeth — a regular brick !” cried the 
young fellow, brightening up at the least relief. “ That 
will be capital. Get me a good slice of beef, or ham, or 
something. And, mind you — don’t forget! — a regular 
stunning bottle of pale ale.” 

“Very well, sir.” 

The acquiescence was somewhat sullen, and, had he 
watched Elizabeth’s face, he might have seen there an ex- 
pression not too flattering. But she faithfully brought 
him his dinner, and kept his secret, even though, hearing 
from over the staircase Mrs. Jones resolutely deny that 
Mr. Leaf had been at home since morning, she felt very 
much as if she were conniving at a lie. With a painful, 
half-guilty consciousness, she waited for her mistress’s usu- 
al question, “ Is my nephew come home ?” but fortunately 
it Was not asked. Miss Leaf lay quiet and passive, and her 
faithful nurse settled her for the night with a strangely 
solemn feeling, as if she were leaving her to her last rest, 
safe and at peace before the overhanging storm broke upon 
the family. 

But all shadow of this storm seemed to have passed 
away from him who was its cause. As soon as the house 
was still Ascott crept down and fell to his supper with as 
good an appetite as possible. He even became free and 
conversational. 

“ Don’t look so glum, Elizabeth. I shall soon weather 
through. Old Ascott will fork out ; he couldn’t help it. 
I’m to be his nephew, you know. Oh, that was a clever 
catch of Aunt Selina’s. If only Aunt Hilary would try 
another like it.” 

“ If you please, sir, I’m going to bed.” 

“Off with you, then, and I’ll not forget the gown at 
Christmas. You’re a sharp young woman, and I’m much 
obliged to you.” And for a moment he looked as if he 
were about to make the usual unmannerly acknowledge 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


163 


merit of civility from a young gentleman to a servant- 
maid, viz., kissing her, but he pulled a face and drew back. 
He really couldn’t ; she was so very plain. 

At this moment there came a violent ring, and “ Fire !” 
was shouted through the keyhole of the door. Terrified, 
Elizabeth opened it, when, with a burst of laughter, a man 
rushed in and laid hands upon Ascott. 

It was the sheriff’s officer. 

When his trouble came upon him Ascott’s manliness 
returned. He turned very white, but he made no opposi- 
tion; had even enough of his wits about him — or some- 
thing better than wits — to stop Mrs. Jones from rushing 
up in alarm and indignation to arouse Miss Leaf. 

“No; she’ll know it quite soon enough. Let her sleep 
till morning. Elizabeth, look here.” He wrote upon a card 
the address of the place he was to be taken to. “Give 
Aunt Hilary this. Say if she can think of a way to get me 
out of this horrid mess ; but I don’t deserve — Never mind. 
Come on, you fellows.” 

He pulled his hat over his eyes, jumped into the cab, and 
was gone. The whole thing had not occupied five min- 
utes. 

Stupefied, Elizabeth stood and considered what was best 
to be done. Miss Hilary must be told ; but how to get at 
her in the middle of the night, thereby leaving her mistress 
to the mercy of Mrs. Jones. It would never do. Sudden- 
ly she thought of Miss Balquidder. She might send a 
message. No, not a message — for the family misery and 
disgrace must not be betrayed to a stranger — but a letter 
to Kensington. 

With an effort Elizabeth composed herself sufficiently 
to write one — her first — to her dear Miss Hilary. 

“ Honored Madam, — Mr. Leaf has got himself into trou- 
ble, and is taken away somewhere ; and I dare not tell mis- 
sis ; and I wish you was at home, as she is not well, but 
better than she has been, and she shall know nothing about 
it till you come. Your obedient and affectionate servant, 

“Elizabeth Hand.” 


164 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Taking Ascott’s latch-key, she quitted the house and 
slipped out into the dark night, almost losing her way 
among the gloomy squares, where she met not a creature 
except the solitary policeman plashing steadily along the 
wet pavement. When he turned the glimmer of his bull’s- 
eye upon her she started like a guilty creature till she re- 
membered that she really was doing nothing wrong, and 
so need not be afraid of any thing. This was her simple 
creed, which Miss Hilary had taught her, and it upheld her, 
even till she knocked at Miss Balquidder’s door. 

There, poor girl, her heart sank, especially when Miss 
Balquidder, in an anomalous costume and a severe voice, 
opened the door herself, and asked who was there, disturb- 
ing a respectable family at this late hour. 

Elizabeth answered, what she had before determined to 
say, as sufficiently explaining her errand, and yet betray- 
ing nothing that her mistress might wish concealed. 

“ Please, ma’am, I’m Miss Leaf’s servant. My missis is 
ill, and I want a letter sent at once to Miss Hilary.” 

“ Oh ! come in, then. Elizabeth, I think, your name is ?” 

“ Yes, ma’am.” 

“ What made you leave home at this hour of the night ? 
Did your mistress send you ?” 

“ No.” 

“ Is she so very ill ? It seems sudden. I saw Miss Hi- 
lary to-day, and she knew nothing at all about it.” 

Elizabeth shrank a little before the keen eye that seemed 
to read her through. 

“There’s more amiss than you have told me, young wom- 
an. Is it because your mistress is in serious danger that 
you want to send for her sister ?” 

“ No.” 

“ What is it, then ? You had better tell me at once. I 
hate concealment.” 

It was a trial ; but Elizabeth held her ground. 

“ I beg your pardon, ma’am ; but I don’t think missis 
would like any body to know, and therefore I’d rather not 
tell you.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


165 


Now the honest Scotswoman, as she said, hated any thing 
underhand, but she respected the right of every human be- 
ing to maintain silence if necessary. She looked sharply 
in Elizabeth’s face, which apparently reassured her, for she 
said, not unkindly, 

“Very well, child, keep your mistress’s secrets by all 
means. Only tell me what you want. Shall I take a cab 
and fetch Miss Hilary at once ?” 

Elizabeth thanked her, but said she thought that would 
not do; it would be better just to send the note the first 
thing to-morrow morning, and then Miss Hilary would 
come home just as if nothing had happened, and Miss Leaf 
would not be frightened by her sudden appearance. 

“ You are a good, mindful girl,” said Miss Balquidder. 
“ How did you learn to be so sensible ?” 

At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered 
and exhausted with the excitement she had gone through, 
and agitated by the feeling of having, for the first time in 
her life, to act on her own responsibility, gave way a little. 
She did not actually cry, but she was very near it. 

Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, 
imperative voice, 

“ David, is your wife away to her bed yet ?” 

“ No, ma’am.” 

“ Then tell her to fetch this young woman to the kitchen 
and give her some supper. And afterward, will you see 
her safe home, poor lassie ? She’s awfully tired, you see.” 

“ Yes, ma’am.” 

And following David’s gray head, Elizabeth, for the first 
time since she came to London, took a comfortable meal in 
a comfortable kitchen, seasoned with such stories of Miss 
Balquidder’s goodness and generosity, that when, an hour 
after, she went home and to sleep, it was with a quieter 
and more hopeful spirit than she could have believed pos- 
sible under the circumstances. 


166 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Next morning, while with that cheerful, unanxious coun- 
tenance which those about an invalid must learn continual- 
ly to wear, Elizabeth was trying to persuade her mistress 
not to rise, she heard a knock, and made some excuse for 
escaping. She well knew what it was, and who had come. 

There, in the parlor, sat Miss Hilary, Mrs. Jones talking 
at her rather than to her, for she hardly seemed to hear. 
But that she had heard every thing was clear enough. 
Her drawn white face, the tight clasp of her hands, show- 
ed that the ill tidings had struck her hard. 

“ Go away, Mrs. Jones,” cried Elizabeth, fiercely. “ Miss 
Hilary will call when she wants you.” 

And with an ingenious movement that just fell short of 
a push, somehow the woman was got on the other side of 
the parlor door, which Elizabeth immediately shut. Then 
Miss Hilary stretched her hands across the table and look- 
ed up piteously in her servant’s face. 

Only a servant; only that poor servant to whom she 
could look for any comfort in this sore trouble, this bitter 
humiliation. There was no attempt at disguise or conceal- 
ment between mistress and maid. 

“Mrs. Jones has told me every thing, Elizabeth. How 
is my sister ? She does not know ?” 

“ No ; and I think she is a good deal better this morning. 
She has been very bad all week ; only she would not let me 
send for you. She is really getting well now ; I’m sure of 
that.” 

“ Thank God !” And then Miss Hilary began to weep. 

Elizabeth also was thankful, even for the tears, for she 
had been perplexed by the hard, dry-eyed look of misery, 
deeper than any thing she could comprehend, or than the 
circumstances seemed to warrant. 

It was deeper. The misery was not only Ascott’s ar* 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


167 


rest ; many a lad has got into debt and got out again— 
the first taste of the law proving a warning to him for life ; 
but it was this ominous “ beginning of the end.” The fatal 
end — which seemed to overhang like a hereditary cloud, to 
taint as with hereditary disease, the Leaf family. 

Another bitterness (and who shall blame it, for when 
love is really love, have not the lovers a right to be one 
another’s first thought?) — what would Robert Lyon say? 
To his honest Scotch nature poverty was nothing ; honor 
every thing. She knew his horror of debt was even equal 
to her own. This, and her belief in his freedom from all 
false pride, had sustained her against many doubts lest he 
might think the less of her because of her present position 
— might feel ashamed could he see her sitting at her ledger 
in that high desk, or even occasionally serving in the shop. 

Many a time things she would have passed over lightly on 
her own account she had felt on his ; felt how they would 
annoy and vex him. The exquisitely natural thought which 
Tennyson has put into poetry — 

“ If I am dear to some one else, 

Then I should be to myself more dear” — 

had often come, prosaically enough perhaps, into her head, 
and prevented her from spoiling her little hands with un- 
necessarily rough work, or carelessly passing down ill 
streets and by-ways, where she knew Robert Lyon, had he 
been in London, would never have allowed her to go. Now 
what did such things signify ? What need of taking care 
of herself? These were all superficial, external disgraces ; 
the real disgrace was within. The plague-spot had burst 
out anew ; it seemed as if this day were the recommence- 
ment of that bitter life of penury, misery, and humiliation, 
familiar through three generations to the women of the 
Leaf family. 

It appeared like a fate. No use to try and struggle out 
of it, stretching her arms up to Robert Lyon’s tender, hon- 
est, steadfast heart, there to be sheltered, taken care of, and 
made happj^. No happiness for her ! Nothing but to go 
on enduring and enduring to the end. 


168 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Such was Hilary’s first emotion: morbid perhaps, yet 
excusable. It might have lasted longer — though in her 
healthy nature it could not have lasted very long— had not 
the reaction come, suddenly and completely, by the open- 
ing of the parlor door and the appearance of Miss Leaf. 

Miss Leaf — pale, indeed, but neither alarmed nor agi- 
tated, who, hearing somehow that her child had arrived, 
had hastily dressed herself and come down stairs in order 
not to frighten Hilary. And as she took her in her arms, 
and kissed her with those mother-like kisses, which were 
the sweetest Hilary had as yet ever known, the sharp an- 
guish went out of the poor girl’s heart. 

“ Oh, Johanna ! I can bear any thing as long as I have 
you.” 

And so in this simple and natural way the miserable se- 
cret about Ascott came out. 

Being once out, it did not seem half so dreadful ; nor was 
its effect nearly so serious as Miss Hilary and Elizabeth 
had feared. Miss Leaf bore it wonderfully ; she might al- 
most have known it beforehand ; they would have thought 
she had, but that she said decidedly she had not. 

“ Still you need not have minded telling me ; though it 
was very good and thoughtful of you, Elizabeth. You have 
gone through a great deal for our sakes, my poor girl.” 

Elizabeth burst into one smothered sob — the first and 
the last. 

“Nay,” said Miss Leaf, very kindly, for this unwonted 
emotion in their servant moved them both, “ you shall tell 
me the rest another time. Go down now, and get Miss 
Hilary some breakfast.” 

When Elizabeth had departed the sisters turned to one 
another. They did not talk much ; where was the use of 
it ? They both knew the worst, both as to facts and fears. 

“What must be done, Johanna?” 

Johanna, after a long pause, said, “ I see but one thing — 
to get him home.” 

Hilary started up, and walked to and fro along the room. 

“No, not that. I will never agree to it. We can not 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


169 


help him. He does not deserve helping. If the debts were 
for food now, or any necessaries; but for mere luxuries — 
mere fine clothes : it is his tailor who has arrested him, you 
know. I would rather have gone in rags ! I would rather 
see us all in rags ! It’s mean, selfish, cowardly, and I de- 
spise him for it. Though he is my own flesh and blood, I 
despise him.” 

“ Hilary !” 

“ No,” and the tears burst from her angry eyes, “ I don’t 
mean that I despise him. I’m sorry for him ; there is good 
in him, poor dear lad ; but I despise his weakness ; I feel 
fierce to think how much it will cost us all, and especially 
you, Johanna. Only think what comforts of all sorts that 
thirty pounds would have brought to you !” 

“God will provide,” said Johanna, earnestly. “But I 
know, my dear, this is sharper to you than to me. Besides, 
I have been more used to it.” 

She closed her eyes with a half shudder, as if living over 
again the old days — when Henry Leaf’s wife and eldest 
daughter used to have to give dinner-parties upon food that 
stuck in their throats, as if every morsel had been stolen ; 
which in truth it was, and yet they were helpless, innocent 
thieves ; when they and the children had to wear clothes 
that seemed to poison them like the shirt ofDejanira; 
when they durst not walk along special streets, nor pass 
particular shops, for the feeling that the shop-people must 
be staring, and pointing, and jibing at them, “ Pay me what 
thou owest !” 

“ But things can not again be so bad as those days, Hi- 
lary. Ascott is young ; he may mend. People can mend, 
my child ; and he had such a different bringing-up from 
what his father had, and his grandfather too. We must 
not be hopeless yet. You see” — and, making Hilary kneel 
down before her, she took her by both hands, as if to im- 
part something of her own quietness to this poor heart, 
struggling as young, honest, upright hearts do struggle 
with something which their whole nature revolts against, 
and loathes, and scorns — “ you see, the boy is our boy ; our 


170 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


own flesh and blood. We were very foolish to let him 
away from us for so long. We might have made him bet- 
ter if we had kept him at Stowbury. But he is young; 
that is my hope of him ; and he was always fond of his 
aunts, and is still, I think.” 

Hilary smiled sadly. “ Deeds, not words. I don’t be- 
lieve in words.” 

“ Well, let us put aside believing, and only act. Let us 
give him another chance.” 

Hilary shook her head. “Another, and another, and an- 
other — it will be always the same. I know it will. I can’t 
tell how it is, Johanna; but whenever I look at you, I feel 
so stern and hard to Ascott. It seems as if there were cir- 
cumstances when pity to some, to one, was wicked injus- 
tice to others ; as if there were times when it is right and 
needful to lop off, at once and forever, a rotten branch, rath- 
er than let the whole tree go to rack and ruin. I would 
do it ! I should think myself justified in doing it.” 

“ But not just yet. He is only a boy — our own boy.” 

And the two women, in both of whom the maternal pas- 
sion existed strong and deep, yet in the one never had 
found, and in the other never might find, its natural chan- 
nel, wept together over this lad, almost as mothers weep. 

“ But what can we do ?” said Hilary at last. “ Thirty 
pounds, and not a halfpenny to pay it with ; must we bor- 
row ?” 

“ Oh no — no,” was the answer, with a shrinking gesture ; 
“ no borrowing. There is the diamond ring.” 

This was a sort of heir-loom from eldest daughter to eld- 
est daughter of the Leaf family, which had been kept, even 
as a sort of superstition, through all temptations of pover- 
ty. The last time Miss Leaf looked at it she had remarked, 
jestingly, it should be given some day to that important 
personage talked of for many a year among the three aunts 
— Mrs. Ascott Leaf. 

“ Who must do without it now,” said J ohanna, looking 
regretfully at the ring ; “ that is, if he ever takes to him- 
self a wife, poor boy.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


m 


Hilary answered, beneath her breath, “ Unless he alters, 
I earnestly hope he never may.” And there came over 
her involuntarily a wild, despairing thought, Would it not 
be better that neither Ascott nor herself should ever be 
married, that the family might die out, and trouble the 
world no more ? 

Nevertheless she rose up to do what she knew had to be 
done, and what there was nobody to do but herself. 

“Don’t mind it, Johanna; for indeed I do not. I shall 
go to a first-rate, respectable jeweler, and he will not cheat 
me ; and then I shall find my way to the sponging-house 
— isn’t that what they call it? I dare say many a poor 
woman has been there before me. I am not the first, and 
shall not be the last, and nobody will harm me. I think I 
look honest, though my name is Leaf.” 

She laughed — a bitter laugh ; but J ohanna silenced it in 
a close embrace ; and when Hilary rose up again she was 
quite her natural self. She summoned Elizabeth, and began 
giving her all domestic directions, just as usual ; finally, 
bade her sister good-by in a tone as like her usual tone as 
possible, and left her settled on the sofa in content and 
peace. 

Elizabeth followed to the door. Miss Hilary had asked 
her for the card on which Ascott had written the address 
of the place where he had been taken to ; and though the 
girl said not a word, her anxious eyes made piteous inquiry. 

Her mistress patted her on the shoulder. 

“ Never mind about me ; I shall come to no harm, Eliza- 
beth.” 

“It’s a bad place; such a dreadful place, Mrs. Jones 
says.” 

“ Is it ?” Elizabeth guessed part, not the whole of the 
feelings that made Hilary hesitate, shrink even, from the 
duty before her, turning first so hot, and then so pale. Only 
as a duty could she have done it at all. “No matter, I must 
go. Take care of my sister.” 

She ran down the door-steps, and walked quickly through 
the Crescent. It was a clear, sunshiny, frosty day — such 


172 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


a day as always both cheered and calmed her. She had, 
despite all her cares, youth, health, energy ; and a holy and 
constant love lay like a sleeping angel in her heart. Must 
I tell the truth, and own that before she had gone two 
streets’ length Hilary ceased to feel so very, very miserable? 

Love — this kind of love of which I speak — is a wonder- 
ful thing, the most wonderful thing in all the world. The 
strength it gives, the brightness, the actual happiness, even 
in the hardest times, is often quite miraculous. When Hi- 
lary sat waiting in the jeweler’s shop, she watched a little 
episode of high life — two wealthy people choosing their 
marriage-plate; the bride, so careless and haughty; the 
bridegroom, so unutterably mean to look at, stamped with 
that innate smallness and coarseness of soul which his fine 
clothes only made more apparent. And she thought — oh, 
how fondly she thought ! — of that honest, manly mien ; of 
that true, untainted heart, which, she felt sure, had never 
loved any woman but herself ; of the warm, firm hand, 
carving its way through the world for her sake, and wait- 
ing patiently till it could openly clasp hers, and give her 
every thing it had won. She would not have exchanged 
him, Robert Lyon, with his penniless love, his half-hopeless 
fortunes, or maybe his lot of never-ending care, for the 
“ brawest bridegroom” under the sun. 

Under this sun — the common, every-day winter sun of 
Regent and Oxford Streets — she walked now as brightly 
and bravely as if there were no trouble before her, no pain- 
ful meeting with Ascott, no horrid humiliation from which 
every womanly feeling in her nature shrunk with acute 
pain. “Robert, my Robert !” she whispered in her heart, 
and felt him so near to her that she was at rest, she hardly 
knew why. 

Possibly grand, or clever, or happy people who conde- 
scend to read this story may despise it, think it unideal, 
uninteresting; treating of small things and common peo- 
ple — “ poor persons,” in short. I can not help it. I write 
for the poor ; not to excite the compassion of the rich to- 
ward them, but to show them their own dignity and the 


MISTRESS A HT> MAID. 


173 


bright side of their poverty. For it has its bright side ; 
and its very darkest, when no sin is mixed up therewith, 
is brighter than many an outwardly prosperous life. 

“ Better is a dinner of herbs , where love is , than a stalled 
ox and hatred therewith. 

“ Better is a dry morsel , and quietness therewith , than a 
house full of sacrifices and strife .” 

With these two sage proverbs — which all acknowledge 
and scarcely any really believe, or surely they would act 
a little more as if they did — I leave Johanna Leaf sitting 
silently in her solitary parlor, knitting stockings for her 
child ; weaving many a mingled web of thought withal, 
yet never letting a stitch go down ; and Hilary Leaf walk- 
ing cheerily and fearlessly up one strange street and down 
another to find out the “ bad” place, where she once had no 
idea it would ever have been her lot to go. One thing she 
knew, and gloried in the knowledge, that if Robert Lyon 
had known she was going, or known half the cares she had 
to meet, he would have recrossed the Indian Seas — have 
risked fortune, competence, hope of the future, which was 
the only cheer of his hard present — in order to save her 
from them all. 

The minute history of this painful day I do not mean to 
tell. Hilary never told it till, years after, she wept it out 
upon a bosom that could understand the whole, and would 
take good care that, while the life beat in his, she never 
should go through the like again. 

Ascott came home — that is, was brought home — very 
humbled, contrite, and grateful. There was no one to meet 
him but his Aunt Johanna, and she just kissed him quiet- 
ly, and bade him come over to the fire ; he was shivering, 
and somewhat pale. He had even two tears in his hand- 
some eyes, the first Ascott had been known to shed since 
he was a boy. That he felt a good deal, perhaps as much 
as was in his nature to feel, there could be no doubt. So 
his two aunts were glad and comforted ; gave him his tea 
and the warmest seat at the hearth ; said not a harsh word 
to him, but talked to him about indifferent things. Tea be- 


174 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ing over, Hilary was anxious to get every thing painful 
ended before Selina came home — Selina, who, they felt by 
instinct, had now a separate interest from themselves, and 
had better not be told this sad story if possible ; so she 
asked her nephew “if he remembered what they had to do 
this evening.” 

“ Had to do ? Oh, Aunt Hilary, I’m so tired ! can’t you 
let me be quiet ? Only this one night. I promise to bring 
you every thing on Monday.” 

“ Monday will be too late. I shall be away. And you 
know you can’t do without my excellent arithmetic,” she 
added, with a faint smile. “ Now, Ascott, be a good boy — 
fetch down all those bills, and let us go over them together.” 

“ His debts came to more than the thirty pounds then ?” 
said his Aunt Johanna, when he was gone. 

“ Yes. But the ring sold for fifty.” And Hilary drew 
to the table, got writing materials, and sat waiting, with a 
dull, silent patience in her look, at w r hich Johanna sighed 
and said no more. 

The aunt and nephew spent some time in going over 
that handful of papers, and approximating to the sum to- 
tal, in that kind of awful arithmetic when figures cease to 
be mere figures, but grow into avenging monsters, bearing 
with them life or death. 

“Is that all? You are quite sure it is all?” said Hilary 
at last, pointing to the whole amount, and looking steadi- 
ly into Ascott’s eyes. 

He flushed up, and asked what she meant by doubting 
his word. 

“Not that, but you might easily have made a mistake; 
you are so careless about money matters.” 

“ Ah ! that’s it. I’m just careless, and so I come to grief. 
But I never mean to be careless any more. I’ll be as pre- 
cise as you. I’ll balance my books every week — every 
day, if you like— exactly as you do at that horrid shop, 
Aunt Hilary.” 

So he was rattling on, but Hilary stopped him by point* 
ing to the figures, 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


175 


“You see, this sum is more than we expected. How is 
it to be met? Think for yourself. You are a man now.” 

“ I know that,” said Ascott, sullenly ; “ but what’s the 
use of it ? Money only makes the man, and I have none. 
If the ancient Peter would but die now and leave me his 
heir, though to be sure Aunt Selina might be putting her 
oar in. Perhaps — considering Pm Aunt Selina’s nephew — 
if I were to walk into the old chap now, he might be in- 
duced to fork out ! Hurrah ! that’s a splendid idea.” 

“ What idea ?” 

“ I’ll borrow the money from old Ascott.” 

“ That means, because he has already given, you would 
have him keep on giving— and you would take, and take, 
and take — Ascott, I’m ashamed of you.” 

But Ascott only burst out laughing. “Nonsense! he 
has money and I have none ; why shouldn’t he give it me?” 

“Why?” she repeated, her eyes flashing and her little 
feminine figure seeming to grow taller while she spoke ; 
“ I’ll tell you, since you don’t seem yourself to understand 
it. Because a young man, with health and strength in 
him, should blush to eat any bread but what he himself 
earns. Because he should work at any thing and every 
thing, stint himself of every luxury and pleasure, rather 
than ask or borrow r , or, except under rare circumstances, 
rather than be indebted to any living soul for a single half- 
penny. I would not, if I were a young man.” 

“What a nice young man you would make, Aunt Hi- 
lary !” 

There was something in the lad’s imperturbable good- 
humor at once irritating and disarming. Whatever his 
faults, they were more negative than positive ; there was 
no malice prepense about him, no absolute personal wick- 
edness. And he had the strange charm of manner and 
speech which keeps up one’s outer surface of habitual af- 
fection toward a person long after all its foundations of 
trust and respect have hopelessly crumbled away. 

“ Come, now, my pretty aunt must go with me. She 
will manage the old ogre much better than I, And he 


176 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


must be managed somehow. It’s all very fine talking of 
independence, but isn’t it hard that a poor fellow should 
be living in constant dread of being carried off to that hor- 
rid, uncleanly, beastly den — bah ! I don’t like thinking of 
it — and all for want of twenty pounds ? You must go to 
him, Aunt Hilary.” 

She saw they must — there was no help for it. Even Jo- 
hanna said so. It was, after all, only asking for Ascott’s 
quarterly allowance three days in advance, for it was due 
on Tuesday. But what jarred against her proud, honest 
spirit was the implication that such a request gave of tak- 
ing as a right that which had been so long bestowed as a 
favor. Nothing but the great strait they were in could 
ever have driven her to consent that Mr. Ascott should be 
applied to at all; but since it must be done, she felt that 
she had better do it herself. Was it from some lurking 
doubt or dread that Ascott might not speak the entire 
truth, as she had insisted upon its being spoken, before Mr. 
Ascott was asked for any thing? since whatever he gave 
must be given with a full knowledge on his part of the 
whole pitiable state of affairs. 

It was with a strange, sad feeling — the sadder because 
he never seemed to suspect it, but talked and laughed with 
her as usual — that she took her nephew’s arm and walked 
silently through the dark squares, perfectly well aware that 
he only asked her to go with him in order to do an unpleas- 
ant thing which he did not like to do himself, and that she 
only went with him in the character of watch, or supervi- 
sor, to try and save him from doing something which she 
herself would be ashamed should be done. 

Yet he was ostensibly the head, hope, and stay of the 
family. Alas ! many a family has to submit to, and smile 
under an equally melancholy and fatal sham. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


m 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Mr. Ascott was sitting half asleep in his solitary din- 
ing-room, his face rosy with wine, his heart warmed also, 
probably from the same cause. Not that he was in the 
least “tipsy” — that low word applicable only to low peo- 
ple, and not to men of property, who have a right to enjoy 
all the good things of this life. He was scarcely even 
“ merry,” merely “ comfortable,” in that cozy, benevolent 
state which middle-aged or elderly gentlemen are apt to 
fall into after a good dinner and good wine, when they 
have no mental resources, and the said good dinner and 
good wine constitutes their best notion of felicity. 

Yet wealth and comfort are not things to be despised. 
Hilary herself was not insensible to the pleasantness of this 
warm, well-lit, crimson -atmosphered apartment. She as 
well as her neighbors liked pretty things about her, soft, 
harmonious colors to look at and wear, well-cooked food to 
eat, cheerful rooms to live in. If she could have had all 
these luxuries with those she loved to share them, no doubt 
she would have been much happier. But yet she felt to 
the full that solemn truth that “ a man’s life consisteth not 
in the abundance of things that he possesses ;” and though 
hers was outwardly so dark, so full of poverty, anxiety, and 
pain, still she knew that inwardly it owned many things, 
one thing especially, which no money could buy, and with- 
out which fine houses, fine furniture, and fine clothes — in- 
deed, all the comforts and splendors of existence, would 
be worse than valueless — actual torment. So, as she looked 
around her, she felt not the slightest envy of her sister Se- 
lina. 

Nor of honest Peter, who rose up from his arm-chair, 
pulling the yellow silk handkerchief from his sleepy face, 
and, it must be confessed, receiving his future connections 
very willingly, and even kindly. 


178 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Now how was he to be told ? How, when she and As* 
cott sat over the wine and dessert he had ordered for them, 
listening to the rich man’s complaisant pomposities, were 
they to explain that they had come a begging, asking him, 
as the climax to his liberalities, to advance a few pounds 
in order to keep the young man whom he had for years gen- 
erously and sufficiently maintained out of prison ? This, 
smooth it over as one might, was, Hilary felt, the plain En- 
glish of the matter, and as minute after minute lengthened, 
and nothing was said of their errand, she sat upon thorns. 

But Ascott drank his wine and ate his walnuts quite 
composedly. 

At last Hilary said, in a sort of desperation, “Mr. Ascott, 
I want to speak to you.” 

“With pleasure, my dear young lady. Will you come 
to my study ? I have a most elegantly furnished study, I 
assure you. And any affair of yours — ” 

“ Thank you, but it is not mine ; it concerns my nephew 
here.” 

And then she braced up all her courage, and while As- 
cott busied himself over his walnuts — he had the grace to 
look excessively uncomfortable — she told, as briefly as pos- 
sible, the bitter truth. 

Mr. Ascott listened, apparently without surprise, and, 
anyhow, without comment. His self-important loquacity 
ceased, and his condescending smile passed into a sharp, 
reticent, business look. He knitted his shaggy brows, con- 
tracted that coarsely-hung but resolute mouth, in which lay 
the secret of his success in life, buttoned up his coat, and 
stuck his hands behind him over his coat-tails. As he stood 
there on his own hearth, with all his comfortable splendors 
about him — a man who had made his own money, hardly 
and honestly, who from the days when he was a poor er- 
rand-lad had had no one to trust to but himself, yet had 
managed always to help himself, ay, and others too — Hi- 
lary’s stern sense of justice contrasted him with the grace- 
ful young man who sat opposite to him, so much his in- 
ferior, and so much his debtor. She owned that Peter 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


179 


Ascott had a right to look both contemptuous and dis- 
pleased. 

“ A very pretty story, but I almost expected it,” said he. 

And there he stopped. In his business capacity he was 
too acute a man to be a man of many words, and his feel- 
ings, if they existed, were kept to himself. 

“ It all comes to this, young man,” he continued, after an 
uncomfortable pause, in which Hilary could have counted 
every beat of her heart, and even Ascott played with his 
wine-glass in a nervous kind of way — “you want money, 
and you think I’m sure to give it, because it wouldn’t be 
pleasant just now to have discreditable stories going about 
concerning the future Mrs. Ascott’s relatives. You’re quite 
right, it wouldn’t. But I’m too old a bird to be caught 
with chaff for all that. You must rise very early in the 
morning to take me in.” 

Hilary started up in an agony of shame. “That’s not 
fair, Mr. Ascott. We do not take you in. Have we not 
told you the whole truth ? I was determined you should 
know it before we asked you for one farthing of your 
money. If there were the smallest shadow of a chance for 
Ascott in any other way, we never would have come to 
you at all. It is a horrible, horrible humiliation !” 

It might be that Peter Ascott had a soft place in his 
heart, or that this time, just before his marriage, was the 
one crisis which sometimes occurs in a hard man’s life, 
when, if the right touch comes, he becomes malleable ever 
after ; but he looked kindly at the poor girl, and said, in 
quite a gentle way, 

“ Don’t vex yourself, my dear. I shall give the young 
fellow what he wants ; nobody ever called Peter Ascott 
stingy. But he has cost me enough already ; he must shift 
for himself now. Hand me over that check-book, Ascott ; 
but remember, this is the last you’ll ever see of my money.” 

He wrote the memorandum of the check inside the page, 
then tore off the check itself, and proceeded to write the 
words “Twenty pounds,” date it, and sign it, lingering over 
the signature as if he had a certain pride in the honest 


180 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


name “ Peter Ascott,” and was well aware of its monetary 
value on ’Change and elsewhere. 

“ There, Miss Hilary, I flatter myself that’s not a bad sig- 
nature, nor would be easily forged. One can not be too 
careful over — What’s that ? a letter, J ohn ? ’ 

By his extreme eagerness, almost snatching it from his 
footman’s hands, it was one of importance. He made some 
sort of rough apology, drew the writing materials to him, 
wrote one or two business -looking letters, and made out 
one or two more checks. 

“Here’s yours, Ascott; take it, and let me have done 
with it,” said he, throwing it across the table folded up. 
“ Can’t waste time on such small transactions. Ma’am, 
excuse me, but five thousand pounds depends on my get- 
ting these letters written and sent off within a quarter of 
an hour.” 

Hilary bent her head, and sat watching the pen scratch, 
and the clock tick on the mantlepiece ; thinking if this real- 
ly was to be the last of his godfather’s allowance, what on 
earth would become of Ascott? For Ascott himself, he 
said not a word ; not even when, the letters dispatched, 
Mr. Ascott rose, and administering a short, sharp homily, 
tacitly dismissed his visitors. Whether this silence was 
sullenness, cowardice, or shame, Hilary could not guess. 

She quitted the house with a sense of grinding humilia- 
tion almost intolerable. But still the worst was over ; the 
money had been begged and given — there was no fear of 
a prison. And, spite of every thing, Hilary felt a certain 
relief that this was the last time Ascott would be indebted 
to his godfather. Perhaps this total cessation of extrane- 
ous help might force the young man upon his own resources, 
compel his easy temperament into active energy, and bring 
out in him those dormant qualities that his aunts still fond- 
ly hoped existed in him. 

“ Don’t be down-hearted, Ascott,” she said ; “ we will 
manage to get on somehow till you hear of a practice, and 
then you must work — work like a ‘ brick,’ as you call it. 
You will, I know.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


181 


He answered nothing. 

“ I won’t let you give in, my boy,” she went on, kindly. 
“Who would ever dream of giving in at your age, with 
health and strength, a good education, and no encumbran- 
ces whatever — not even aunts! for we will not stand in 
your way, be sure of that. If you can not settle here, you 
shall try to get out abroad, as you have sometimes wished, 
as an army-surgeon or a ship’s doctor; you say these ap- 
pointments are easy enough to be had. Why not try? 
Any thing ; we will consent to any thing, if only we can 
see your life busy, and useful, and happy.” 

Thus she talked, feeling far more tenderly to him in his 
forlorn despondency than when they had quitted the house 
two hours before. But Ascott took not the slightest no- 
tice. A strange fit of sullenness or depression seemed to 
have come over him, which, when they reached home and 
met Aunt J ohanna’s silently-questioning face, changed into 
devil-may-care indifference. 

“ Oh yes, aunt, we’ve done it ; we’ve got the money, and 
now I may go to the dogs as soon as I like.” 

“ No,” said Aunt Hilary, “ it is nothing of the sort ; it is 
only that Ascott must now depend upon himself, and not 
upon his godfather. Take courage,” she added, and went 
up to him and kissed him on the forehead ; “ we’ll never 
let our boy go to the dogs ! and as for this disappointment, 
or any disappointment, why, it’s just like a cold bath ; it 
takes away your breath for the time, and then you rise up 
out of it brisker and fresher than ever.” 

But Ascott shook his head with a fierce denial. “Why 
should that old fellow be as rich as Croesus and I as poor 
as a rat ? Why should I be put into the world to enjoy 
myself, and can’t ? Why was I made like what I am, and 
then punished for it ? Whose fault is it ?” 

Ay, whose ? The eternal, unsolvable problem rose up be- 
fore Hilary’s imagination. The ghastly spectre of that ev- 
erlasting doubt, which haunts even the firmest faith some- 
times — and which all the nonsense written about that mys- 
tery which, 


182 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


“ Binding nature fast in fate, 

Leaves free the human will,” 

only makes darker than before — oppressed her for the time 
being with an inexpressible dread. 

Ay, why was it that the boy was what he was ? From 
his inherited nature, his temperament, or his circumstan- 
ces ? What, or, more awful question still, who was to blame ? 

But as Hilary’s thoughts went deeper down the question 
answered itself — at least as far as it ever can be answered 
in this narrow, finite stage of being. Whose will — we dare 
not say whose blame — is it that evil must inevitably gen- 
erate evil ? that the smallest wrong-doing in any human 
being rouses a chain of results which may fatally involve 
other human beings in an almost incalculable circle of mis- 
ery ? The wages of sin is death. Were it not so, sin would 
cease to be sin, and holiness, holiness. If He, the All-holy, 
who for some inscrutable purpose saw fit to allow the ex- 
istence of evil, allowed any other law than this, in either 
the spiritual or material world, would He not be denying 
Himself, counteracting the necessities of His own righteous 
essence, to which evil is so antagonistic, that we can not 
doubt it must be in the end cast into total annihilation — 
into the allegorical lake of fire and brimstone, which is the 
“second death?” Nay, do they not in reality deny Him 
and His holiness almost as much as Atheists do, who preach 
that the one great salvation which He has sent into the 
world is a salvation from punishment — a keeping out of 
hell and getting into heaven — instead of a salvation from 
sin , from the power and love of sin, through the love of 
God in Christ ? 

I tell these thoughts, because like lightning they passed 
through Hilary’s mind, as sometimes a whole chain of 
thoughts do, link after link, and because they helped her 
to answer her nephew quietly and briefly, for she saw he 
was in no state of mind to be argued with. 

“ I can not explain, Ascott, why it is that any of us are 
what we are, and why things happen to us as they do ; it 
is a question we none of us understand, and in this world 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


183 


never shall. But if we know what we ought to be, and 
how we may make the best of every thing, good or bad, 
that happens to us, surely that is enough, without perplex- 
ing ourselves about any thing more.” 

Ascott smiled, half contemptuously, half carelessly : he 
was not a young fellow likely to perplex himself long or 
deeply about these sort of things. 

“Anyhow, I’ve got £20 in my pocket, so I can’t starve 
for a day or two. Let’s see; where is it to be cashed? 
Hillo ! who would have thought the old fellow would have 
been so stupid ? Look there, Aunt Hilary !” 

She was so unfamiliar with checks for £20, poor little 
woman I that she did not at first recognize the omission 
of the figures “£20” at the left-hand corner. Otherwise 
the check was correct. 

“ Ho, ho !” laughed Ascott, exceedingly amused, so easi- 
ly was the current of his mind changed. “ It must have 
been the £5000 pending that muddled the ’cute old fel- 
low’s brains. I wonder whether ne will remember it after- 
ward, and come posting up to see that I have taken no ill 
advantage of his blunder ; changed this ‘ Twenty’ into ‘ Sev- 
enty.’ I easily could, and put the figures £70 here. What 
a good joke !” 

“ Had ye not better go to him at once, and have the mat- 
ter put right ?” 

“ Rubbish ! I can put it right myself. It makes no dif- 
ference who fills up a check, so that it is signed all correct. 
A deal you women know of business !” 

But still Hilary, with a certain womanish uneasiness 
about money-matters, and an anxiety to have the thing 
settled beyond doubt, urged him to go. 

“ Very well ; just as you like. I do believe you are afraid 
of my turning forger.” 

He buttoned his coat with a half sulky, half defiant air, 
left his supper untasted, and disappeared. 

It was midnight before he returned. His aunts were still 
sitting up, imagining all sorts of horrors, in an anxiety too 
great for words; but when Hilary ran to the door with 


184 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


the natural “ Oh, Ascott, where have you been ?” he pushed 
her aside with a gesture that was almost fierce in its re- 
pulsion. 

“ Where have I been ? taking a walk round the Park ; 
that’s all. Can’t I come and go as I like, without being 
pestered by women ? I’m horribly tired. Let me alone 
—do !” 

They did let him alone. Deeply wounded, Aunt J ohan- 
na took no further notice of him than to set his chair a lit- 
tle closer to the fire, and Aunt Hilary slipped down stairs 
for more coals. There she found Elizabeth, who they 
thought had long since gone to bed, sitting on the stairs, 
very sleepy, but watching still. 

“Is he come in?” she asked; “because there are more 
bailiffs after him. I’m sure of it ; I saw them.” 

This, then, might account for his keeping out of the way 
till after twelve o’clock, and also for his wild, haggard 
look. Hilary put aside her vague dread of some new mis- 
fortune ; assured Elizabeth that all was right ; he had got 
wherewithal to pay every body on Monday morning, and 
would be safe till then. All debtors were safe on Sunday. 

“ Go to bed now — there’s a good girl ; it is hard that 
you should be troubled with our troubles.” 

Elizabeth looked up with those fond gray eyes of hers. 
She was but a servant, and yet looks like these engraved 
themselves ineffaceably on her mistress’s heart, imparting 
the comfort that all pure love gives from any one human 
being to another. 

And love has its wonderful rights and rewards. Per- 
haps Elizabeth, who thought herself nothing at all to her 
mistress, would have marveled to know how much closer 
her mistress felt to this poor, honest, loving girl, whose 
truth she believed in, and on whose faithfulness she im- 
plicitly depended, than toward her own flesh and blood, 
who sat there moodily over the hearth ; deeply pitied, sed- 
ulously cared for, but as for being confided in, relied on, in 
great matters or small, his own concerns or theirs — the 
thing was impossible. 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


185 


They could not even ask him — they dared not, in such a 
strange mood was he — the simple question, Had he seen 
Mr. Ascott, and had Mr. Ascott been annoyed about the 
check? It would not have been referred to at all had 
not Hilary, in holding his coat to dry, taken his pocket- 
book out of the breast-pocket, when he snatched at it an- 
grily. 

“ What are you meddling with my things for? Do you 
want to get at the check, and be peering at it to see if it’s 
all right? But you can’t; I’ve paid it away. Perhaps 
you’d like to know who to? Then you sha’n’t. I’ll not 
be accountable to you for all my proceedings. I’ll not be 
treated like a baby. You’d better mind what you are 
about, Aunt Hilary.” 

Never, in all his childish naughtiness or boyish imper- 
tinence, had Ascott spoken to her in such a tone. She re- 
garded him at first with simple astonishment, then hot in- 
dignation, which spurred her on to stand up for her digni- 
ty, and not submit to be insulted by her own nephew. But 
then came back upon her her own doctrine, taught by her 
own experience, that character and conduct alone consti- 
tutes real dignity or authority. She had, in point of fact, 
no authority over him ; no one can have, not even parents, 
over a young man of his age, except that personal influence 
which is the strongest sway of all. 

She said only, with a quietness that surprised herself, 
“ You mistake, Ascott ; I have no wish to interfere with 
you whatever; you are your own master, and must take 
your own course. I only expect from you the ordinary 
respect that a gentleman shows to a lady. \ou must be 
very tired and ill, or you would not have forgotten that. 

“ I didn’t ; or, if I did, I beg your pardon,” said he, half 
subdued. “ When are you going to bed ?” 

“ Directly. Shall I light your candle also ?” 

“ Oh no, not for the world ; I couldn’t sleep a wink. I’d 
go mad if I went to bed. I think I’ll turn out and have a 
cigar.” 

Ilis whole manner was so strange that his Aunt Johan- 


186 


MISTRESS AND MAil). 


na, who had sat aloof, terribly grieved, but afraid to inter- 
fere, was moved to rise up and go over to him. 

“ Ascott, my dear, you are looking quite ill. Be advised 
by your old auntie. Go to bed at once, and forget every 
thing till morning.” 

“ I wish I could — I wish I could. Oh, auntie, auntie !” 

He caught hold of her hand, which she had laid upon his 
head, looked up a minute into her kind, fond face, and burst 
into a flood of boyish tears. 

Evidently his troubles had been too much for him; he 
was in a state of great excitement. For some minutes his 
sobs were almost hysterical ; then by a struggle he recov- 
ered himself, seemed exceedingly annoyed and ashamed, 
took up his caudle, bade them a hurried good-night, and 
went to bed. 

That is, he went to his room ; but they heard him mov- 
ing about overhead for a long while after ; nor were they 
surprised that he refused to rise next morning, but lay 
most of the time with his door locked until late in the aft- 
ernoon, when he went out for a long walk, and did not re- 
turn till supper, which he ate almost in silence. Then, aft- 
er going up to his room, and coming down again, complain- 
ing bitterly how very cold it w T as, he crept in to the fire- 
side with a book in his hand, of which Hilary noticed he 
scarcely read a line. 

His aunts said nothing to him; they had determined 
not ; they felt that further interference would be not only 
useless, but dangerous. 

“He will come to himself by-and-by; his moods, good or 
bad, never last long, you know,” said Hilary, somewhat bit- 
terly. “ But, in the mean time, I think we had better just 
do as he says — let him alone.” 

And in that sad, hopeless state they passed the last hours 
of that dreary Sunday — afraid either to comfort him or rea- 
son with him ; afraid, above all, to blame him, lest it might 
drive him altogether astray. That he w r as in a state of 
great misery, half sullen, half defiant, they saw, and were 
scarcely surprised at it ; it was very hard not to be able 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


187 


to open their loving hearts to him, as those of one family 
should always do, making every trouble a common care, 
and every joy a universal blessing. But in his present state 
of mind — the sudden obstinacy of a weak nature conscious 
of its weakness, and dreading control — it seemed impossi- 
ble either to break upon his silence or to force his confi- 
dence. 

They might have been right in this, or wrong; after- 
ward Hilary thought the latter. Many a time she wished 
and wished, with a bitter regret, that instead of the quiet 
“ Good-night, Ascott !” and the one rather cold kiss on his 
forehead, she had flung her arms round his neck, and insist- 
ed on his telling out his whole mind to her, his nearest kins- 
woman, who had been half aunt and half sister to him all 
his life. But it was not done : she parted from him, as she 
did Sunday after Sunday, with a sore, sick feeling of how 
much he might be to her, to them all, and how little he 
really w*as. 

If this silence of hers was a mistake — one of those mis- 
takes which sensitive people sometimes make — it was, like 
all similar errors, only too sorrowfully remembered and 
atoned for. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

The week passed by, and Hilary received no ill tidings 
from home. Incessant occupation kept her from dwelling 
too much on anxious subjects ; besides, she would not have 
thought it exactly right, while her time and her mental 
powers were for so many hours per diem legally Miss Bal- 
quidder’s, to waste the one and weaken the other by what is 
commonly called “ fretting.” Nor, carrying this conscien- 
tious duty to a higher degree and toward a higher Master, 
would she have dared to sit grieving overmuch over their 
dark future. And yet it was very dark. She pondered 
over what was to be done with Ascott, or whether he was 
still to be left to the hopeless hope of doing something for 


188 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


himself; how long the little establishment at No. 15 could 
be kept together, or if, after Selina’s marriage, it would not 
be advisable to make some change that should contract 
expenses, and prevent this hard separation, from Monday 
to Saturday, between Johanna and herself. 

These, with equally anxious thoughts, attacked her in 
crowds every day and every hour ; but she had generally 
sufficient will to put them aside, at least till after work 
was done, and they could neither stupefy nor paralyze her. 
Trouble had to her been long enough familiar to have taught 
her its own best lesson — that the mind can, in degree, rule 
itself, even as it rules the body. 

Thus, in her business duties, which were principally keep- 
ing accounts ; in her management of the two young people 
under her, and of the small domestic establishment con- 
nected with the shop, Hilary went steadily on, day after 
day ; made no blunders in her arithmetic, no mistakes in 
her housekeeping. Being new to all her responsibilities, 
she had to give her whole mind to them; and she did it; 
and it was a blessing to her — the sanctified blessing which 
rests upon labor, almost seeming to neutralize its primeval 
curse. 

But night after night, when work was over, she sat alone 
at her sewing — the only time she had for it — and her 
thoughts went faster than her needle. She turned over 
plan after plan, and went back upon hope after hope, that 
had risen and broken like waves of the sea — nothing hap- 
pening that she had expected ; the only thing which had 
happened, or which seemed to have any permanence or 
reality, being two things which she had never expected at 
all — Selina’s marriage, and her own engagement with Miss 
Balquidder. It often happens so, in most people’s lives, 
until at last they learn to live on from day to day, doing 
each day’s duty within the day, and believing that it is a 
righteous as well as a tender hand which keeps the next 
day’s page safely folded down. 

So Hilary sat, glad to have a quiet hour, not to grieve 
in, but to lay out the details of a plan which had been ma* 


r 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


189 


taring in her mind all week, and which she meant definite- 
ly to propose to Johanna when she went home next day. 
It would cost her something to do so, and she had had 
some hesitations as to the scheme itself, until at last ’she 
threw them all to the winds, as an honest-hearted, faithful, 
and faithfully-trusting woman would. Her plan was, that 
they should write to the only real friend the family had — 
the only good man she believed in — stating plainly their 
troubles and difficulties about their nephew ; asking his ad- 
vice, and possibly his help. He might know of something 
— some opening for a young surgeon in India, or some tem- 
porary appointment for the voyage out and home, which 
might catch Ascott’s erratic and easily-attracted fancy; 
give him occupation for the time being, and at least detach 
him from his present life, with all its temptations and dan- 
gers. 

Also, it might result in bringing the boy again under 
that influence which had been so beneficial to him while it 
lasted, and which Hilary devoutly believed was the best 
influence in the world. Was it unnatural if mingled with 
an earnest desire for Ascott’s good was an underlying de- 
light that that good should be done to him by Robert 
Lyon ? 

So, when her plan was made, even to the very words in 
which she meant to unfold it to Johanna, and the very form 
in which Johanna should write the letter, she allowed her- 
self a few brief minutes to think of him — Robert Lyon — 
to call up his eyes, his voice, his smile ; to count, for the 
hundredth time, how many months — one less than twenty- 
four, so she could not say years now — it would be before 
he returned to England. Also, to speculate when and 
where they would first meet, and how he would speak the 
one word — all that was needful to change “liking” into 
“ love,” and “ friend” into “ wife.” They had so grown to- 
gether during so many years, not the less so during these 
years of absence, that it seemed as if such a change would 
hardly make any difference. And yet — and yet — as she 
sat and sewed, wearied with her day’s labors, sad and per- 


190 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


plexed, she thought — if only by some strange magic, Rob* 
ert Lyon were standing opposite, holding open his arms, 
ready and glad to take her and all her cares to his heart, 
how she would cling there ! how closely she w r ould creep 
to him, weeping with joy and content, neither afraid nor 
ashamed to let him see how dearly she loved him ! 

Only a dream ! ah, only a dream ! and she started from 
it at the sharp sound of the door-bell — started, blushing 
and trembling, as if it had been Robert Lyon himself, when 
she knew it was only her two young assistants whom she 
had allowed to go out to tea in the neighborhood. So she 
settled herself to her work again ; put all her own thoughts 
by in their little private corners, and waited for the en- 
trance and the harmless gossip of these two orphan girls, 
who were already beginning to love her, and to make a 
friend of her, and toward whom she felt herself quite an 
elderly and responsible person. Poor little Hilary ! It 
seemed to be her lot always to take care of somebody or 
other. Would it ever be that any body should take care 
of her ? 

So she cleared away some of her needle-work, stirred the 
fire, which was dropping hollow and dull, and looked up 
pleasantly to the opening door. But it was not the girls : 
it was a man’s foot and a man’s voice. 

“Any person of the name of Leaf living here? I wish 
to see her, on business.” 

At another time she would have laughed at the manner 
and words, as if it were impossible so great a gentleman 
as Mr. Ascott could want to see so small a person as the 
“ person of the name of Leaf,” except on business. But 
now she was startled by his appearance at all. She sprang 
up only able to articulate “ My sister — ” 

“Don’t be frightened; your sisters are quite well. I 
called at No. 15 an hour ago.” 

“You saw them?” 

“No; I thought it unadvisable, under the circumstances.” 

“What circumstances?” 

“ I will explain, if you will allow me to sit down ; bah ! 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


191 


I’ve brought in sticking to me a straw out of that con- 
founded shaky old cab. One ought never to be so stupid 
as to go any where except in one’s own carriage. This is 
rather a small room, Miss Hilary.” 

He eyed it curiously round ; and, lastly, with his most 
acute look, he eyed herself, as if he wished to find out some- 
thing from her manner before going into farther explana- 
tions. 

But she stood before him a little uneasy, and yet not 
very much so. The utmost she expected was some quar- 
rel with her sister Selina ; perhaps the breaking off of the 
match, which would not have broken Hilary’s heart, at all 
events. 

“ So you have really no idea what I’m come about ?” 

“Not the slightest.” 

“Well !” said Peter Ascott, “ I hardly thought it; but 
when one has been taken in as I have been, and this isn’t 
the first time by your family — ” 

“ Mr. Ascott ! will you explain yourself?” 

“ I will, ma’am. It’s a very unpleasant business I come 
about; any other gentleman but me would have come 
with a police-officer at his back. Look here, Miss Hilary 
Leaf— did you ever set eyes on this before ?” 

He took out his check-book, turned deliberately over the 
small memorandum halves of the page, till he came to one 
in particular, then hunted in his pocket-book for something, 

“ My banker sent in to-day my canceled checks, which I 
don’t usually go over oftener than three months ; he knew 
that, the scamp !” 

Hilary looked up. 

“ Your nephew, to be sure. See !” 

He spread before her a check, the very one she had 
watched him write seven days before, made payable to 
“Ascott Leaf, or bearer,” and signed with the bold, pecul- 
iar signature, “ Peter Ascott.” Only, instead of being a 
check for twenty pounds, it was for seventy. 

Instantly the whole truth flashed upon Hilary ; Ascott’s 
remark about how easily the T could be made into an S, 


192 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


and what a “ good joke” it would be ; his long absence that 
night; his strange manner; his refusal to let her see the 
check again ; all was clear as daylight. 

Unfortunate boy ! the temptation had been too strong 
for him. Under what sudden, insane impulse he had acted 
— under what delusion of being able to repay in time; or 
of Mr. Ascott’s not detecting the fraud ; or, if discovered, 
of its being discovered after the marriage, when to prose- 
cute his wife’s nephew would be a disgrace to himself, 
could never be known. But there unmistakable was the 
altered check, which had been presented and paid, the bank- 
er, of course, not having the slightest suspicion of any thing 
amiss. 

“Well, isn’t this a nice return for all my kindness ? So 
cleverly done, too. But for the merest chance I might not 
have found it out for three months. Oh, he’s a precious 
young rascal, this nephew of yours. His father was only 
a fool, but he — Do you know that this is a matter of for- 
gery — forgery, ma’am,” added Mr. Ascott, waxing hot in 
his indignation. 

Hilary uttered a bitter groan. 

Yes, it was quite true. Their Ascott, their own boy, 
was no longer merely idle, extravagant, thoughtless — faults 
bad enough, but capable of being mended as he grew old- 
er : he had done that which to the end of his days he could 
never blot out. He was a swindler and a forger. 

She clasped her hands tightly together, as one struggling 
with sharp physical pain, trying to read the expression of 
Mr. Ascott’s face. At last she put her question into words. 

“ What do you mean to do ? Shall you prosecute him ?” 

Mr. Ascott crossed his legs, and settled his neckcloth with 
a self-satisfied air. He evidently rather enjoyed the im- 
portance of his position. To be dictator, almost of life and 
death, to this unfortunate family was worth certainly fifty 
pounds. 

“ Well, I haven’t exactly determined. The money, you 
see, is of no moment to me, and I couldn’t get it back any- 
how. He’ll never be worth a halfpenny, that rascal. I 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


193 


might prosecute, and nobody would blame me; indeed, if 
I were to decline marrying your sister, and cut the whole 
set of you, I don’t see,” and he drew himself up, “ that any 
thing could be said against me. But — ” 

Perhaps, hard man as he was, he was touched by the 
agony of suspense in Hilary’s face, for he added, 

“ Come, come, I won’t disgrace your family ; I won’t do 
any thing to harm the fellow.” 

“ Thank you !” said Hilary, in a mechanical, upnatural 
voice. 

“ As for my money, he’s welcome to it, and much good 
may it do him. ‘ Set a beggar on horseback, and he’ll ride 
to the devil,’ and in double quick time too. I won’t hin- 
der him. I wash my hands of the young scapegrace. But 
he’d better not come near me again.” 

“No,” acquiesced Hilary, absently. 

“ In fact,” said Mr. Ascott, with a twinkle of his sharp 
eye, “ I have already taken measures to frighten him away, 
so that he may make himself scarce, and give neither you 
nor me any farther trouble. I drove up to your door with 
a policeman, asked to see Mr. Leaf, and when I heard that 
he was out — a lie, of course — I left word I’d be back in half 
an hour. Depend upon it,” and he winked confidentially, 
“ he will smell a rat, and make a moonlight flitting of it, 
and we shall never hear of him any more.” 

“ Never hear of Ascott any more ?” repeated Hilary ; and 
for an instant she ceased to think of him as what he was 
— swindler, forger, ungrateful to his benefactors, a disgrace 
to his home and family. She saw only the boy Ascott, 
with his bright looks and pleasant ways, whom his aunts 
had brought up from his cradle, and loved with all his 
faults — perhaps loved still. “ Oh, I must go home. This 
will break Johanna’s heart !” 

Mr. Peter Ascott possibly never had a heart, or it had 
been so stunted in its growth that it had never reached its 
fair development. Yet he felt sorry in his way for the 
“ young person,” who looked so deadly white, yet tried so 
hard not to make a scene; nay, when her two assistants 


194 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


came into the one little parlor, deported herself with steady- 
composure; told them that she was obliged suddenly to 
go home, but would be back, if possible, the next morning. 
Then, in that orderly, accurate way which Peter Ascott 
could both understand and appreciate, she proceeded to 
arrange with them about the shop and the house in case 
she might be detained till Monday. 

“You’re not a bad woman of business,” said he, with a 
patronizing air. “This seems a tidy little shop; I dare 
say you’ll get on in it.” 

She looked at him with a bewildered air, and went on 
speaking to the young woman at the door. 

“ How much might your weekly receipts be in a place 
like this ? And what salary does Miss — Miss Wliat’s-her- 
name give to each of you ? You’re the head shop-woman, 
I suppose ?” 

Hilary made no answer; she scarcely heard. All her 
mind was full of but one thing: “Never see Ascott any 
more !” There came back upon her all the dreadful sto- 
ries she had ever heard of lads who had committed forgery 
or some similar offense, and, in dread of punishment, had 
run away in despair, and never been heard of for years — 
come to every kind of misery, perhaps even destroyed 
themselves. The impression was so horribly vivid, that 
when, pausing an instant in putting her books in their 
places, she heard the door-bell ring, Hilary with difficulty 
repressed a scream. 

But it was no messenger of dreadful tidings — it was only 
Elizabeth Hand ; and the quiet fashion in which she en- 
tered showed Hilary at once that nothing dreadful had 
happened at home. 

“ Oh no, nothing has happened,” confirmed the girl. 
“ Only Miss Leaf sent me to see if you could come home 
to-night instead of to-morrow. She is quite well — that is, 
pretty well ; but Mr. Leaf — ” 

Here, catching sight of Miss Hilary’s visitor, Elizabeth 
stopped short. Peter Ascott was one of her prejudices. 
She determined in his presence to let out no more of the 
family affairs. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


195 


On his part, Mr. Ascott had always treated Elizabeth as 
people like him usually do treat servants, afraid to lose an 
inch of their dignity, lest it should be an acknowledgment 
of equal birth and breeding with the class from which they 
are so terribly ashamed to have sprung. He regarded her 
now with a lorldly air. 

“ Young woman — I believe you are the young woman 
who this afternoon told me that Mr. Leaf was out. It was 
a fib, of course.” 

Elizabeth turned round indignantly. “No, sir; I don’t 
tell fibs. He was out.” 

“Did you give him my message when he came in?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ And what did he say, eh ?” 

“ Nothing.” 

This was the literal fact ; but there was something be- 
hind which Elizabeth had not the slightest intention of 
communicating. In fact, she set herself, physically and 
mentally, in an attitude of dogged resistance to any pump- 
ing of Mr. Ascott ; for though, as she had truly said, noth- 
ing special had happened, she felt sure that he was at the 
bottom of something which had gone wrong in the house- 
hold that afternoon. 

It was this. When Ascott returned, and she told him 
of his godfather’s visit, the young man had suddenly turned 
so ghastly pale that she had to fetch him a glass of water, 
and his Aunt Johanna — Miss Selina was out — had to tend 
him and soothe him for several minutes before he was right 
again. When at last he seemed returning to his natural 
self, he looked wildly up at his aunt, and clung to her in 
such an outburst of feeling, that Elizabeth had thought it 
best to slip out of the room. It was tea-time, but still she 
waited outside for half an hour or longer, when she gently 
knocked, and after a minute or two Miss Leaf came out. 
There seemed nothing wrong, at least not much — not more 
than Elizabeth had noticed many and many a time after 
talks betwen Ascott and his aunts. 

“ I’ll take in the tea myself,” she said ; “ for I want you 


196 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


to start at once for Kensington to fetch Miss Hilary. Don’t 
frighten her — mind that, Elizabeth. Say I am much as 
usual myself, but that Mr. Leaf is not quite well, and I think 
she might do him good. Remember the exact words.” 

Elizabeth did, and would have delivered them accurate- 
ly if Mr. Ascott had not been present, and addressed her in 
that authoritative manner. Now, she resolutely held her 
tongue. 

Mr. Ascott might in his time have been accustomed to 
cringing, frightened, or impertinent servants, but this was 
a phase of the species with which he was totally unfamiliar. 
The girl was neither sullen nor rude, yet evidently quite 
independent; afraid neither of her mistress, nor of himself. 
He was sharp enough to see that whatever he wanted to 
get out of Elizabeth must be got in another way. 

“ Come, my wench, you’d better tell ; it’ll be none the 
worse for you, and it sha’n’t harm the young fellow, though 
I dare say he has paid you well for holding your tongue.” 

“ About what, sir ?” 

“Oh! you know what happened when you told him I 
had called, eh ? Servants get to know all about their mas- 
ter’s affairs.” 

“Mr. Leaf isn’t my master, and his affairs are nothing 
to me ; I don’t pry into ’em,” replied Elizabeth. “ If you 
want to know any thing, sir, hadn’t you better ask himself? 
He’s at home to-night. I left him and my missus going to 
their tea.” 

“ Left them at home, and at tea ?” 

“Yes, Miss Hilary.” 

It was an inexpressible relief. For the discovery must 
have come. Ascott must have known or guessed that Mr. 
Ascott had found him out ; he must have confessed all to 
his aunt, or Johanna would never have done two things 
which her sister knew she strongly disliked— sending Eliz- 
abeth wandering through London at night, and fetching 
Hilary home before the time. Yet they had been left sit- 
ting quietly at their tea ! 

Perhaps, after all, the blow had not been so dreadful. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


197 


Johanna saw comfort through it all. Vague hopes arose 
in Hilary also ; visions of the poor sinner sitting “ clothed 
and in his right mind,” contrite and humbled ; comforted 
by them all, with the inexpressible tenderness with which 
we yearn over one who “ was dead and is alive again, was 
lost, and is found helped by them all in the way that 
women — some women especially, and these were of them 
— seem formed to help the erring and unfortunate; for, 
erring as he was, he had also been unfortunate. 

Many an excuse for him suggested itself. How foolish 
of them, ignorant women that they were, to suppose that 
seventeen years of the most careful bringing up could, with 
his temperament, stand against the countless dangers of 
London life ; of any life where a young man is left to him- 
self in a great town, with his temptations so many, and his 
power of resistance so small. 

And this might not, could not be a deliberate act. It 
must have been committed under a sudden impulse, to be 
repented of for the rest of his days. Nay, in the strange 
way in which our sins and mistakes are made not only the 
whips to scourge us, but the sicknesses out of which we oft- 
en come — suffering and weak indeed, but yet relieved, and 
fresh, and sound — who could tell but that this grave fault, 
this actual guilt, the climax of so many lesser errors, might 
not work out in the end Ascott’s complete reformation ? 

So, in the strange way in which, after a great shock, we 
begin to revive a little, to hope against hope, to see a slen- 
der ray breaking through the darkness, Hilary composed 
herself, at least so far as to enable her to bid Elizabeth go 
down stairs, and she would be ready directly. 

“I think it is the best thing I can do — to go home at 
once,” she said. 

“ Certainly, my dear,” replied Mr. Ascott, rather flattered 
by her involuntary appeal, and by an inward consciousness 
of his o wn exceeding generosity. “And, pray, don’t disturb 
yourselves. Tell your sister from me — your sister Selina, 
I mean — that I overlook every thing on condition that you 
keep him out of my sight— that young blackguard !” 


198 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ Don’t, don’t !” cried Hilary, piteously. 

“ Well, I won’t, though it’s his right name — a fellow who 
could — Look you, Miss Hilary, when his father sent to me 
to beg ten pounds to bury his mother with, I did bury her, 
and him also, a month after, very respectably too, though 
he had no claim upon me, except that he came from Stow- 
bury. And I stood godfather to the child, and I’ve done 
my duty by him. But mark my words, what’s bred in the 
bone will come in the flesh. He was born in a prison, and 
he’ll die in a prison.” 

“ God forbid !” said Hilary, solemnly. And again she 
felt the strong conviction, that whatever his father had 
been, or his mother, of whom they had heard nothing till 
she was dead,Ascott could not have lived all these years 
of his childhood and early boyhood with his three aunts at 
Stowbury without gaining at least some good, which might 
counteract the hereditary evil ; as such evil can be coun- 
teracted, even as hereditary disease can be gradually re- 
moved by wholesome and careful rearing in a new gener- 
ation. 

“Well, I’ll not say any more,” continued Peter Ascott; 
“only, the sooner the young fellow takes himself off the 
better. He’ll only plague you all. Now, can you send 
out for a cab for me ?” 

Hilary mechanically rang the bell and gave the order. 

“I’ll take you to town with me if you like. It’ll save 
you the expense of the omnibus. I suppose you always 
travel by omnibus ?” 

Hilary answered something, she hardly knew what, ex- 
cept that it was a declining of all these benevolent atten- 
tions. At last she got Mr. Ascott outside the street door, 
and, returning, put her hand to her head with a moan. 

“ Oh, Miss Hilary, don’t look like that !” 

“ Elizabeth, do you know what has happened ?” 

“No.” 

“ Then I don’t want you to know. And you must never 
try to find it out ; for it is a secret that ought to be kept 
strictly within the family. Are you to be trusted ?” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


190 


“ Yes, Miss Hilary.” 

“ Now, get me my bonnet, and let us make haste and go 
home.” 

They walked down the gas-lit Kensington High Street, 
Hilary taking her servant’s arm ; for she felt strangely 
weak. As she sat in the dark corner of the omnibus she 
tried to look things in the face, and form some definite 
plan ; but the noisy rumble at once dulled and confused 
her faculties. She felt capable of no consecutive thought, 
but found herself stupidly watching the two lines of faces, 
wondering, absently, what sort of people they were ; what 
were their lives and histories ; and whether they all had, 
like herself, their own personal burden of woe. Which was, 
alas ! the one fact that never need be doubted in this world. 

It was nigh upon eleven o’clock when Hilary knocked 
at the door of No. 15. 

Miss Leaf opened it ; but for the first time in her life she 
had no welcome for her child. 

“ Is it Ascott ? I thought it was Ascot t,” she cried, 
peering eagerly up and down the street. 

“ He is gone out, then ? When did he go ?” asked Hi- 
lary, feeling her heart turn stone-cold. 

“Just after Selina came in. She — she vexed him. But 
he can not be long. Is not that man he ?” 

And just as she was, without shawl or bonnet, Johanna 
stepped out into the cold, damp night, and strained her 
eyes into the darkness ; but in vain. 

“ I’ll walk round the Crescent once, and maybe I shall 
find him. Only go in, Johanna.” 

And Hilary was away again into the dark, walking rap- 
idly, less with the hope of finding Ascott than to get time 
to calm herself, so as to meet, and help her sisters to meet, 
this worst depth of their calamity ; for something warned 
her that this last desperation of a weak nature is more to 
be dreaded than any overt obstinacy of a strong one. She 
had a conviction that Ascott never would come home. 

After a while they gave up waiting and watching at the 
front door, and shut themselves up in the parlor. The first 


200 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


explanation past, even Selina ceased talking ; and they sat 
together, the three women, doing nothing, attempting to 
do nothing, only listening ; thinking every sound was a 
step on the pavement or a knock at the door. Alas ! what 
would they not have given for the fiercest knock, the most 
impatient, angry footstep, if only it had been their boy’s ? 

About one o’clock Selina had to be put to bed in strong 
hysterics. She had lashed her nephew with her bittef 
tongue till he had rushed out of the house, declaring that 
none of them should ever see his face again. Now she re- 
proached herself as being the cause of all, and fell into an 
agony of remorse, \yhich engrossed her sisters’ whole care; 
until, her violent emotion having worn itself out, she went 
to sleep, the only one who did sleep in that miserable 
family. 

For Elizabeth also, having been sent to bed hours before, 
was found by Miss Hilary sitting on the kitchen stairs, 
about four in the morning. Her mistress made no attempt 
at reproach, but brought her into the parlor to share the 
silent watch, never broken except to make up the fire or 
light a fresh candle; till candles burned up, and shutters 
were opened, and upon their great calamity stared the 
broad unwelcome day. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

“Missing” — “Lost” — “To — ” — all the initials of the al- 
phabet — we read these sort of advertisements in the news- 
papers ; and unless there happens to be in them something 
intensely pathetic, comical, or horrible, we think very little 
about them. Only those who have undergone all that such 
an advertisement implies can understand its depth of mis- 
ery: the sudden missing of the person out of the home- 
circle, whether going away in anger or driven away by ter- 
ror or disgrace ; the hour after hour and day after day of 
agonized suspense; the self-reproach, real or imaginary, 
lest any thing might have been said or done that was not 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


201 


said or done — any thing prevented that was not prevented ; 
the gnawing remorse for some cruel, or careless, or bitter 
word, that could so easily have been avoided. 

Alas ! if people could only be made to feel that every 
word, every action carries with it the weight of an eterni- 
ty; that the merest chance may make something said or 
done quite unpremeditatedly, in vexation, sullenness, or 
spite, the last action, the last word ; which may grow into 
an awful remembrance, rising up between them and the 
irredeemable past, and blackening the future for years ! 

Selina was quite sure her unhappy nephew had commit- 
ted suicide, and that she had been the cause of it. This 
conviction she impressed incessantly on her two sisters as 
they waited upon her, or sat talking by her bedside during 
that long Saturday, when there was nothing else to be 
done. 

That was the misery of it. There was nothing to be 
done. They had not the slightest clew to Ascott’s haunts 
or associates. With the last lingering of honest shame, or 
honest respect for his aunts, he had kept all these things to 
himself. To search for him in wide London was altogether 
impossible. 

Two courses suggested themselves to Hilary — one, to go 
and consult Miss Balquidder ; the other — which came into 
her mind from some similar case she had heard of — to set 
on foot inquiries at all police-stations. But the first idea 
was soon rejected : only at the last extremity could she 
make patent the family misery — the family disgrace. To 
the second, similar and even stronger reasons applied. 
There was something about the cool, matter-of-fact, busi- 
ness-like act of setting a detective officer to hunt out their 
nephew from which these poor women recoiled. Besides, 
impressed as he was — he had told his Aunt Johanna so — 
with the relentlessness of Mr. Ascott, might not the chance 
of his discovering that he was hunted drive him to des- 
peration ? 

Hardly to suicide. Hilary steadfastly disbelieved in 
that. When Selina painted horrible pictures of his throw- 


202 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 

ing himself off Waterloo Bridge; or being found hanging 
to a tree in one of the parks ; or locking himself in a hotel 
bedchamber and blowing out his brains, her younger sister 
only laughed — laughed as much as she could — if only to 
keep Johanna quiet. 

Yet she herself had few fears; for she knew that Ascott 
was, in a sense, too cowardly to kill himself. He so dis- 
liked physical pain, physical unpleasantness of all kinds. 
She felt sure he would stop short, even with the razor or 
the pistol in his hand, rather than do a thing so very dis- 
agreeable. 

Nevertheless, in spite of herself, while she and her sisters 
sat together, hour after hour, in a stillness almost like that 
when there is a death in the house, these morbid terrors 
took a double size. Hilary ceased to treat them as ridicu- 
lous impossibilities, but began to argue them out rationally. 
The mere act of doing so made her recoil ; for it seemed an 
acknowledgment that she was fighting, not with chimeras, 
but realities. 

“It is twenty-four hours since he went,” she reasoned. 
“If he had done any thing desperate he would have done 
it at once, and we should have heard of it long before now ; 
ill news always travels fast. Besides, his name was marked 
on all his clothes in full. I did it myself. And his coat- 
pockets were always stuffed with letters ; he used to cram 
them in as soon as he got them, you know.” 

And at this small remembrance of one of his “ ways,” 
even though it was an unkind way, and had caused them 
many a pain, from the want of confidence it showed, his 
poor, fond aunts turned aside to hide their starting tears. 
The very phrase “ he used to” seemed such an unconscious 
admission that his life with them was over and done — that 
he never would either please them or vex them any more. 

Yet they took care that during the whole day every 
thing should be done as if he were expected minute by 
minute: that Elizabeth should lay the fourth knife and 
fork at dinner, the fourth cup and saucer at tea. Eliza- 
beth, who throughout had faithfully kept her pledge ; who 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


203 


went about silently and unobservantly, and by every means 
in . her power put aside the curiosity of Mrs. Jones as to 
what could be the reason that her lodgers had sat up all 
night, and what on earth had become of young Mr. Leaf. 

After tea, Johanna, quite worn out, consented to go to 
bed ; and then Hilary, left to her own responsibility, set 
herself to consider how long this dreadful quietness was 
to last, whether nothing could be done. She could endure 
whatever was inevitable, but it was against her nature as 
well as her conscience to sit down tamely to endure any 
thing whatsoever till it did become inevitable. 

In the first place, she determined on that which a certain 
sense of honor, as well as the fear of vexing him should he 
come home, had hitherto prevented — the examining of As- 
cott’s room, drawers, clothes, and papers. It was a very 
dreary business — almost like doing the like to a person 
who was dead, only without the sad sanctity that belongs 
to the dead, whose very errors are forgotten and forgiven, 
who can neither suffer nor make others suffer any more. 

Many things she found, and more she guessed at — things 
which stabbed her to the heart, things that she never told, 
not even to Johanna; but she found no clew whatever 
to Ascott’s whereabouts, intentions, or connections. One 
thing, however, struck her — that most of his clothes, and 
all his somewhat extensive stock of jewelry, were gone; 
every thing, in short, that could be convertible into money. 
It was evident that his flight, sudden as it was, had been 
premeditated as at least a possibility. 

This so far was satisfactory. It took away the one 
haunting fear of his committing suicide, and made it like- 
ly that he was still lingering about, hiding from justice 
and Mr. Ascott, or perhaps waiting for an opportunity to 
escape from England — from the fear that his godfather, 
even if not prosecuting him, had the power and doubtless 
the will completely to crush his future, wherever he was 
known. 

Where could he go ? His aunt tried to think over every 
word he had ever let fall about America, Australia, or any 


204 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


other place to which the hopeless outlaws of this country 
fly ; hut she could recollect nothing to enable her to form 
any conclusion. One thing only she was sure of — that if 
once he went away, his own words would come true ; they 
would never see his face again. The last tie, the last con- 
straint that bound him to home and a steady, righteous life 
would be broken : he would go all adrift, be tossed hither 
and thither on every wave of circumstance — what he called 
circumstance — till Heaven only knew what a total wreck 
he might speedily become, or in what forlorn and far-off 
seas his ruined life might go down. He, Ascott Leaf, the 
last of the name and family. 

“ It can not be ; it shall not be !” cried Hilary. A sharp, 
bitter cry of resistance to the death ; and her heart seemed 
to go out to the wretched boy, and her hands to clutch at 
him, as if he were drowning, and she were the only one to 
save him. How could she do it ? 

If she could only get at him by word or letter ! But 
that seemed impossible, until, turning over scheme after 
scheme, she suddenly thought of the one which so many 
people had tried in similar circumstances, and which she 
remembered they had talked over and laughed over, they 
and Ascott, one Sunday evening not so very long ago. 
This was — a Times advertisement. 

The difficulty how to word it, $o as to catch his attention 
and yet escape publicity, was very great, especially as his 
initials were so common. Hundreds of “ A. L.’s” might be 
wandering away from home, to whom all that she dared 
say to call Ascott back would equally apply. At last a 
bright thought struck her. 

“A. leaf” (with a small X) “ will be quite safe wherever 
found. Come. Saturday. 15 .” 

As she wrote it — this wretched double-entendre — she 
was seized with that sudden sense of the ludicrous which 
sometimes intrudes in such a ghastly fashion in the very 
midst of great misery. She burst into uncontrollable laugh- 
ter, fit after fit ; so violent that Elizabeth, who came in by 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


205 


chance, was terrified out of her wits, and, kneeling beside 
her mistress, implored her to be quiet. At last the par- 
oxysm ended in complete exhaustion. The tension of the 
last twenty -four hours had given way, and Hilary knew 
her strength was gone. Yet the advertisement ought to 
be taken to the Times office that very night, in order to 
be inserted without fail on Monday morning. 

There was but one person whom she could trust — Eliza- 
beth. 

She looked at the girl, who was kneeling beside the sofa, 
rubbing her feet, and sometimes casting a glance round, in 
the quiet way of one well used to nursing, who can find 
out how the sufferer is without “ fussing” with questions. 
She noticed, probably because she had seen little of her 
of late, a curious change in Elizabeth. It must have been 
gradual, but yet its result had never been so apparent be- 
fore. Her brusqueness had softened down, and there had 
come into her and shone out of her, spite of all her natural 
uncomeliness of person, that beautiful, intangible some- 
thing, common alike to peasant and queen, as clear to see 
and as sad to miss in both — womanliness. Added thereto 
was the gentle composure of mien which almost invariably 
accompanied it, which instinctively makes you feel that in 
great things or small, whatever the woman has to do, she 
will do it in the womanliest, wisest, and best way. 

So thought Miss Hilary as she lay watching her servant, 
and then explained to her the errand upon which she wished 
to send her. 

Not much explanation, for she merely gave her the ad- 
vertisement to read, and told her what she wished done 
with it. And Elizabeth, on her part, asked no questions, 
but simply listened and obeyed. 

After she was gone Hilary lay on the sofa passive and 
motionless. Her strength and activity seemed to have 
collapsed at once into that heavy quietness which comes 
when one has endured to the utmost limit of endurance, 
when one feels as if to speak a word or to lift a finger 
would be as much as life was worth. 


206 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ Oh, if I could only go to sleep !” was all she thought. 

By-and-by sleep did come, and she was taken far away 
out of these miseries. By the strange peculiarity of dreams, 
that we so seldom dream about any grief that oppresses us 
at the time, but generally of something quite different, she 
thought she was in some known unknown land, lovely and 
beautiful, with blue hills rising in the distance, and blue 
seas creeping and curling on to the shore. On this shore 
she was walking with Robert Lyon, just as he used to be, 
with his true face and honest voice. He did not talk to 
her much ; but she felt him there, and knew they had but 
“one heart between them.” A heart which had never 
once swerved, either from the other ; a heart whole and 
sound, into which the least unfaith had never come — that 
had never known, or recognized even as a possibility, the 
one first doubt, the ominous 

“ Little rift within the lute, 

That by-and-by will make the music mute, 

And, ever widening, slowly silence all.” 

Is it ever so in this world ? Does God ever bring the 
faithful man to the faithful woman, and make them love 
one another with a righteous, holy, persistent tenderness, 
which dare look in His face, nor be ashamed ; which sees 
in this life only the beginning of the life to come ; and in 
the closest, most passionate human love something to be 
held with a loose hand, something frail as glass and brittle 
as straw, unless it is perfected and sanctified by the love 
divine ? 

Hilary at least believed so. And when, at Elizabeth’s 
knock, she woke with a start, and saw — not the sweet sea- 
shore and Robert Lyon, but the dull parlor, and the last 
flicker of the fire, she thanked God that her dream was not 
all a dream — that, sharp as her misery was, it did not touch 
this — the love of her heart : she believed in Robert Lyon 
still. 

And so she rose and spoke quite cheerfully, asking Eliza* 
beth how she had managed, and whether the advertisement 
would be sure to be in on Monday morning. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


207 


“ Yes, Miss Hilary ; it is sure to be all right.” 

And then the girl hung about the room in an uneasy 
way, as if she had something to tell, which was the fact. 

Elizabeth had had an adventure. It was a new thing in 
her monotonous life ; it brightened her eyes, and flushed 
her cheeks, and made her old nervousness of manner re- 
turn. More especially as she was somewhat perplexed, 
being divided in her mind between the wish she had to 
tell her mistress every thing, and the fear to trouble her, 
at this troublous time, with any small matter that merely 
concerned herself. 

The matter was this. When she had given in her ad- 
vertisement at the Times office, and was standing behind 
the counter waiting for her change and receipt, there stood 
beside her a young man, also waiting. She had hardly 
noticed him, till on his talking to the clerk about some 
misprint in his advertisement, apparently one of the great 
column of “ Want Places,” her ear was caught by the un- 
mistakable Stowbury accent. 

It was the first time she had heard it since she left home, 
and to Elizabeth’s tenacious nature home in absence had 
gained an additional charm, had grown to be the one place 
in the world about which her affections clung. In these 
dreary wilds of London, to hear a Stowbury tongue, to 
catch sight of a Stowbury person, or even one who might 
know Stowbury, made her heart leap up with a bound of 
joy. She turned suddenly, and looked intently at the 
young man, or rather the lad, for he seemed a mere lad, 
small, slight, and whiskerless. 

“ Well, miss, I hope you’ll know me again next time,” 
said the young fellow. At which remark Elizabeth saw 
that he was neither so young nor so simple as she had at 
first thought. She drew back, very much ashamed, and 
coloring deeply. 

Now, if Elizabeth ever looked any thing like comely, it 
was when she blushed; for she had the delicate skin pe- 
culiar to the young women of her district, and when the 
blood rushed through it, no cheek of lady fair ever assumed 


208 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


a brighter rose. That, or the natural vanity of man in be* 
ing noticed by woman, caught the youth’s attention. 

“ Come, now, miss, don’t be shy or offended. Perhaps 
I’m going your way? Would you like company home?” 

“No, thank you,” said Elizabeth, with great dignity. 

“ Well, won’t you even tell a fellow your name ? Mine’s 
Tom Cliffe, and I live — ” 

“ Cliffe ! Are you little Tommy Cliffe, and do you come 
from Stowbury ?” 

And all Elizabeth’s heart was in her eyes. 

As has been said, she was of a specially tenacious nature. 
She liked few people, but those she did like she held very 
fast. Almost the only strong interest of her life, except 
Miss Hilary, had been the little boy whom she had snatched 
from under the horse’s heels ; and though he was rather a 
scapegrace, and cared little for her, and his mother was a 
decidedly objectionable woman, she had clung to them 
both firmly till she lost sight of them. 

Now it was not to be expected that she should recognize 
in this London stranger the little lad whose life she had 
saved — a lad, too, from her beloved Stowbury — without 
a certain amount of emotion, at which the individual in 
question broadly stared. 

“ Bless your heart, I am Tommy Cliffe from Stowbury, 
sure enough. Who are you ?” 

“Elizabeth Hand.” 

Whereupon ensued a most friendly greeting. Tom de* 
dared he should have known her any where, and had never 
forgotten her — never ! How far that was true or not, he 
certainly looked as if it were ; and two great tears of 
pleasure dimmed Elizabeth’s kind eyes. 

“You’ve grown a man now, Tommy,” said she, looking 
at him with a sort of half-maternal pride, and noticing his 
remarkably handsome and intelligent face ; so intelligent 
that it would have attracted notice, though it was set upon 
broad, stooping shoulders, and a small, slight body. “ Let 
me see — how old are you ?” 

“I’m nineteen, I think.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


209 


“ And I’m t wo-and-twenty. How aged we are growing !” 
said Elizabeth with a smile. 

Then she asked after Mrs. Cliffe, but got only the brief 
answer, “ Mother’s dead,” given in a tone as if no more in- 
quiries would be welcome. His two sisters, also, had died 
of typhus in one week, and Tom had been “ on his own 
hook,” as he expressed it, for the last three years. 

He w T as extremely frank and confidential ; told how he 
had begun life as a printer’s “ devil,” afterwards become a 
compositor, and his health failing, had left the trade, and 
gone as a servant to a literary gentleman. 

“An uncommon clever fellow is master; keeps his car- 
riage, and has dukes to dinner, all out of his books. Maybe 
you’ve heard of them, Elizabeth ?” and he named a few, in a 
patronizing way ; at which Elizabeth smiled, for she knew 
them well. But she nevertheless regarded with a certain 
awe the servant of so great a man, and “ little Tommy 
Cliffe” took a new importance in her eyes. 

Also, as he walked with her along the street to find an 
omnibus, she could not help perceiving what a sharp little 
fellow he had grown into ; how, like many another printer’s 
boy, he had caught the influence of the atmosphere of let- 
ters, and was educated — self-educated, of course — to a de- 
gree far beyond his position. When she looked at him, and 
listened to him, Elizabeth involuntarily thought of Benaja- 
min Franklin, and of many more who had raised themselves 
from the ink-pot and the compositor’s desk to fame and 
eminence, and she fancied that such might be the lot of 
“ little Tommy Cliffe.” Why not ? If so, how excessively 
proud she should be ! 

For the moment she had forgotten her errand ; forgot- 
ten even Miss Hilary. It was not till Tom Cliffe asked 
her where she lived that she suddenly recollected her mis- 
tress might not like, under present circumstances, that their 
abode or any thing concerning them should be known to a 
Stowbury person. 

It was a struggle. She would have liked to see the lad 
again ; have liked to talk over with him Stowbury things 


210 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


and Stowbury people ; but she felt she ought not, and she 
would not. 

“Tell me where you live, Tom, and that will do just as 
well — at least till I speak to my mistress. I never had a 
visitor before, and my mistress might not like it.” 

“No followers allowed, eh ?” 

Elizabeth laughed. The idea of little Tommy Cliffe as 
her “ follower” seemed so very funny. 

So she bade him good-by ; having, thanks to his gay 
frankness, been made acquainted with all about him, but 
leaving him in perfect ignorance concerning herself and her 
mistress. She only smiled when he declared contemptu- 
ously, and with rather a romantic emphasis, that he would 
hunt her out, though it were half over London. 

This was all her adventure. When she came to tell it, 
it seemed very little to tell, and Miss Hilary listened to it 
rather indifferently, trying hard to remember who Tommy 
Cliffe was, and to take an interest in him because he came 
from Stowbury. But Stowbury days were so far off now 
— with such a gulf of pain between. 

Suddenly the same fear occurred to her that had occurred 
to Elizabeth. 

“ The lad did not see the advertisement, I hope ? You 
did not tell him about us ?” 

“ I told him nothing,” said Elizabeth, speaking softly, 
and looking down. “ I did not mention even any body’s 
name.” 

“ That was right : thank you.” 

But oh, the bitterness of knowing, and feeling sure Eliz- 
abeth knew too, the thing for which she thanked her ; and 
that not to mention Ascott’s name was the greatest kind- 
ness the faithful servant could show toward the family. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


211 


CHAPTER XX. 

Ascott Leaf never came home. 

Day after day appeared the advertisement, sometimes 
slightly altered, as hope or fear suggested ; hut no word, no 
letter, no answer of any kind reached the anxious women. 

By-and-by, moved by their distress, or perhaps feeling 
that the scapegrace would be safer got rid of if found 
and dispatched abroad in some decent manner, Mr. Ascott 
himself took measures for privately continuing the search. 
Every outward-bound ship was examined ; every hospital 
visited; every case of suicide investigated; but in vain. 
The unhappy young man had disappeared, suddenly and 
completely, as many another has disappeared, out of the 
home-circle, and been never heard of more. 

It is difficult to understand how a family can possibly 
bear such a sorrow, did we not know that many have had 
to bear it, and have borne it, with all its load of agonizing 
suspense, slowly dying hope, 

“ The hope that keeps alive despair,” 

settling down into a permanent grief, compared to which 
the grief for loss by death is light and endurable. 

The Leaf family went through all this. Was it better or 
worse for them that their anguish had to be secret ? that 
there were no friends to pity, inquire, or console? that Jo- 
hanna had to sit hour by hour and day by day in the sol- 
itary parlor, Selina having soon gone back to her old ways 
of “ gadding about” and her marriage preparations ; and 
that, hardest of all, Hilary had on the Monday morning to 
return to Kensington, and work, work, work, as nothing 
were amiss ? 

But it was natural that all this should tell upon her ; and 
one day Miss Balquidder said, after a long covert obser- 
vation of her face. “My dear, you look ill. Is there any 


212 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


thing troubling you ? My young people always tell me 
their troubles, bodily or mental. I doctor both.” 

“ 1 am sure of it,” said Hilary, with a sad smile, but en- 
tered into no explanation, and Miss Balquidder had the 
wise kindliness to inquire no further. Nevertheless, on 
some errand or other she came to Kensington nearly ev- 
ery evening, and took Hilary back with her to sleep at 
No. 15. 

“ Your sister Selina must wish to have you with her as 
much as possible till she is married,” she said, as a reason 
for doing this. 

And Hilary acquiesced, but silently, as we often do ac- 
quiesce in what ought to be a truth, but which we know to 
be the saddest, most painful falsehood. 

For Selina, it became plain to see, was one of the family 
no more. After her first burst of self-reproachful grief she 
took Mr. Ascott’s view of her nephew’s loss — that it was a 
good riddance; went on calmly with her bridal prepara- 
tions, and seemed only afraid lest any thing should inter- 
fere to prevent her marriage. 

But the danger was apparently tided over. No news 
of Ascott came. Even the daily inquiries for him by his 
creditors had ceased. His aunt Selina was beginning to 
breathe freely, when, the morning before the wedding-day, 
as they were all sitting in the midst of white finery, but as 
sadly and silently as if it were a funeral, a person was sud- 
denly shown in “ on business.” 

It was a detective officer sent to find out from Ascott 
Leaf’s aunts whether a certain description of him, in a 
printed hand-bill, was correct; for his principal creditor, 
exasperated, had determined on thus advertising him in 
the public papers as having “absconded.” 

Had a thunderbolt fallen in the little parlor the three 
aunts could not have been more utterly overwhelmed. 
They made no “ scene” — a certain sense of pride kept these 
poor gentlewomen from betraying their misery to a strange 
man ; though he was a very civil man, and having delivered 
himself of his errand, like an automaton, sat looking into 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


213 


his hat, and taking no notice of aught around him. He 
was accustomed to this sort of thing. 

Hilary was the first to recover herself. She glanced 
round at her sisters, but they had not a word to say. In 
any crisis of family difficulty they always left her to take 
the helm. 

Rapidly she ran over in her mind all the consequences 
that would arise from this new trouble — the public dis- 
grace ; Mr. Ascott’s anger and annoyance — not that she 
cared much for this, except so far as it would affect Selina; 
lastly, the death-blow it was to any possible hope of re- 
claiming the poor prodigal, who she did not believe was 
dead, but still fondly trusted would return one day from 
his wanderings and his swine’s husks to have the fatted 
calf killed for him and glad tears shed over him. But after 
being advertised as “ absconded,” Ascott never would, nev- 
er could come home any more. 

Taking as cool and business-like a tone as she could, she 
returned the paper to the detective. 

“This is a summary proceeding. Is there no way of 
avoiding it ?” 

“One, miss,” replied the man, very respectfully. “If 
the family would pay the debt.” 

“ Do you know how much it is ?” 

“Eighty pounds.” 

“Ah !” 

That hopeless sigh oi Johanna’s was sufficient answer, 
though no one spoke. 

But in desperate cases some women acquire a desperate 
courage, or rather it is less courage than faith — the faith 
which is said to “ remove mountains” — the belief that to 
the very last there must be something to be done, and, if 
it can be done, they will have strength to do it. True, the 
mountain may not be removed, but the mere act of faith 
or courage sometimes teaches how to climb over it. 

“Very well. Take this paper back to your employer. 
He must be aware that his only chance of payment is by 
suppressing it. If he will do that, in two days he shall 


214 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


hear from us, and we will make arrangements about pay- 
ing the debt.” 

Hilary said this to her sisters’ utter astonishment ; so 
utter that they let her say it, and let the detective go 
away with a civil “ Good-morning,” before they could in- 
terfere or contradict by a word. 

“ Paying the debt ! Hilary, what have you promised ! 
It is an impossibility.” 

“Like the Frenchman’s answer to his mistress — ‘Ma- 
dame, if it had been possible it would have been done al- 
ready ; if it is impossible, it shall be done.’ It shall, I 
say.” 

“ I wonder you can jest about our misfortunes,” said Se- 
lina, in her most querulous voice. 

“ I’m not jesting. But where is the use of sitting down 
to moan ! I mean what I say. The thing must be done.” 

Her eyes glittered — her small, red lips were set tightly 
together. 

“ If it is not done, sisters — if his public disgrace is not 
prevented, don’t you see the result? Not as regards your 
marriage, Selina — the man must be a coward who would 
refuse to marry a woman he cared for, even though her 
nearest kinsman had been hanged at the Old Bailey — but 
Ascott himself. The boy is not a bad boy, though he has 
done wickedly ; but there is a difference between a wick- 
ed act and a wicked nature. I mean to save him if I can.” 

“How?” 

“ By saving his good name ; by paying the debt.” 

“ And where on earth shall you get the money ?” 

“ I will go to Miss Balquidder and — ■” 

“ Borrow it ?” 

“ No, never ! I would as soon think of stealing it.” 

Then controlling herself, Hilary explained that she meanc 
to ask Miss Balquidder to arrange for her withthe creditor 
to pay the eighty pounds by certain weekly or monthly in- 
stallments, to be deducted from her salary at Kensington. 

“ It is not a very great favor to ask of her — merely that 
she should say, ‘ This young woman is employed by me ; 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


215 


I believe her to be honest, respectable, and so forth ; also, 
that when she makes a promise to pay, she will to the best 
of her power perform it.’ A character which is at present 
rather a novelty in the Leaf family.” 

“ Hilary !” 

“I am growing bitter, Johanna, I know I am. Why 
should we suffer so much? Why should we be always 
dragged down — down — in this way? Why should we 
never have had any one to cherish and take care of us, like 
other women ? Why — ” 

Miss Leaf laid her finger on her child’s lips — 

“ Because it is the will of God.” 

Hilary flung herself on her dear old sister’s neck, and 
burst into tears. 

Selina too cried a little, and said that she should like to 
help in paying the debt if Mr. Ascott had no objection. 
And then , she turned back to her white splendors, and be- 
came absorbed in the annoyance of there being far too 
much clematis and far too little orange-blossom in the bri- 
dal bonnet — which it was now too late to change. A lit- 
tle, also, she vexed herself about the risk of confiding in 
Miss Balquidder, lest by any chance the story might get 
round to Russell Square ; and was urgent that at least 
nothing should be said or done until after to-morrow. She 
was determined to be married, and dreaded any slip be- 
tween the cup and the lip. 

But Hilary was resolute. “ I said that in two days the 
matter should be arranged, and so it must be, or the man 
will think we too break our promises.” 

“ You can assure him to the contrary,” said Selina, with 
dignity. “ In fact, why can’t you arrange with him with- 
out going at all to Miss Balquidder ?” 

Again the fierce, bitter expression returned to Hilary’s 
face. 

“ You forget, Miss Balquidder’s honest name is his only 
guarantee against the dishonesty of ours.” 

“Hilary, you disgrace us — disgrace me— speaking in 
such a way. Are we not gentlewomen ?” 


216 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ I don’t know, Selina. I don’t seem to know or to feel 
any thing, except that I would live on bread and water in 
order to live peaceably and honestly. Oh ! will it ever, 
ever be ?” 

She walked up and down the parlor, disarranging the 
white draperies which lay about, feeling unutterable con- 
tempt for them and for her sister. Angry and miserable, 
with every nerve quivering, she was at war with the whole 
world. 

This feeling lasted even when, after some discussion, she 
gained her point, and was on her way to call on Miss Bal- 
quidder. She went round and round the square many 
times, trying to fix in her mind word for word what she 
meant to say ; revealing no more of the family history than 
was absolutely necessary, and stating her business in the 
briefest, hardest, most matter-of-fact way — putting it as a 
transaction between employer and employed, in which 
there was no more favor asked or bestowed than could 
possibly be avoided. And as the sharp east wind blew 
across her at every corner, minute by minute she felt her- 
self growing more fierce, and hard, and cold. 

“This will never do. I shall be wicked by-and-by. I 
must go in and get it over.” 

Perhaps it was as well. Well for her, morally as phys- 
ically, that there should have been that sudden change 
from the blighting weather outside to the warm, well-light- 
ed room, where the good rich woman sat at her early and 
solitary tea. 

Very solitary it looked — the little table in the centre of 
that large, handsome parlor, with the one cup and saucer, 
the one easy-chair. And as Hilary entered she noticed, 
amid all this comfort and luxury, the still, grave, almost 
sad expression which solitary people always get to wear. 

But the next minute Miss Balquidder had turned round, 
and risen, smiling. 

“ Miss Leaf, how very kind of you to come and see me ! 
Just the day before the wedding, too, when you must be 
so busy ! Sit down and tell me all about it. But first, my 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


217 


dear, how wet your boots are ! Let me take them off at 
once.” 

Which she did, sending for her own big slippers, and 
putting them on the tiny feet with her own hands. 

Hilary submitted — in truth, she was too much surprised 
to resist. 

Miss Balquidder had, like most folk, her opinions or 
K crotchets” — as they might be — and one of them was, to 
keep her business and friendly relations entirely distinct 
and apart. Whenever she went to Kensington or her oth- 
er establishments she was always emphatically “ the mis- 
tress” — a kindly and even motherly mistress certainly, but 
still authoritative, decided. Moreover, it was her invaria- 
ble rule to treat all her employes alike — “ making no step- 
bairns” among them. Thus for some time it had happened 
that Hilary had been, and felt herself to be, just Miss Leaf, 
the book-keeper, doing her duty to Miss Balquidder, her 
employer, and neither expecting nor attaining any closer 
relation. 

But in her own house, or it might be from the sudden 
apparition of that young face at her lonely fireside, Miss 
Balquidder appeared quite different. 

A small thing touches a heart that is sore with trouble. 
When the good woman rose up — after patting the little 
feet, and approving loudly of the woolen stockings — she 
saw that Hilary’s whole face was quivering with the effort 
to keep back her tears. 

There are some women of whom one feels by instinct 
that they were, as Miss Balquidder had once jokingly said 
of herself, specially meant to be mothers. And though, in 
its strange providence, Heaven often denies the maternity, 
it can not, and does not mean to shut up the well-spring 
of that maternal passion — truly a passion to such women 
as these, almost as strong as the passion of love — but lets 
the stream, which might otherwise have blessed one child 
or one family, flow out wide and far, blessing wherever it 
goes. 

In a tone that somehow touched every fibre of Hilary’s 


213 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


heart, Miss Balquidder said, placing her on a low chair be« 
side her own, 

“ My dear, you are in trouble. I saw it a week or two 
ago, but did not like to speak. Couldn’t you say it out, 
and let me help you ? You need not be afraid. I never 
tell any thing, and every body tells every thing to me.” 

That was true. Added to this said motherliness of hers, 
Miss Balquidder possessed that faculty, which some peo- 
ple have in a remarkable degree, and some — very good peo- 
ple too — are totally deficient in, of attracting confidence. 
The secrets she had been trusted with, the romances she 
had been mixed up in, the Quixotic acts she had been called 
upon to perform during her long life, would have made a 
novel — or several novels — such as no novelist could dare 
to write, for the public would condemn them as impossible 
and unnatural. But all this experience — though happily 
it could never be put into a book — had given to the wom- 
an herself a view of human nature at once so large, lenient, 
and just, that she was the best person possible to hear the 
strange and pitiful story of young Ascott Leaf. 

How it came out Hilary hardly knew ; she seemed to 
have told very little, and yet Miss Balquidder guessed it 
all. It did not appear to surprise or shock her. She nei- 
ther began to question nor preach ; she only laid her hand 
— her large, motherly, protecting hand, on the bowed head, 
saying, 

“ How much you must have suffered, my poor bairn !” 

The soft Scotch tone and word — the grave, quiet Scotch 
manner, implying more than it even expressed — was it 
wonderful if underlying as well as outside influences made 
Hilary completely give way ? 

Robert Lyon had had a mother, who died when he was 
seventeen, but of whom he kept the tenderest remembrance, 
often saying that of all the ladies he had met with in the 
world there was none equal to her — the strong, tender, wom- 
anly peasant woman — refined in mind, and word, and ways 
— though to the last day of her life she spoke broad Scotch, 
and did the work of her cottage with her own hands. It 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


210 


seems as if that mother — toward whom Hilary’s fancy had 
clung, lovingly as a woman ought to cling, above all oth- 
ers, to the mother of the man she loves — were speaking to 
her now, comforting her and helping her — comfort and help 
that it would have been sweeter to receive from her than 
from any woman living. 

A mere fancy ; but in her state of long uncontrolled ex- 
citement it took such possession of her that Hilary fell on 
her knees, and hid her face in Miss Balquidder’s lap, sob- 
bing aloud. 

The other was a little surprised ; it was not her Scotch 
way to yield to emotion before folk; but she was a wise 
woman, she asked no questions, merely held the quivering 
hands and smoothed the throbbing head, till composure 
returned. Some people have a magical, mesmeric power 
of Soothing and controlling: it was hers. When she took 
the poor face between her hands, and looked straight into 
the eyes, with, “ There, you are better now,” Hilary re- 
turned the gaze as steadily, nay, smilingly, and rose. 

“ Now, may I tell you my business ?” 

“ Certainly, my dear. When one’s friends are in trouble, 
the last thing one ought to do is to sit down beside them 
and moan. Did you come to ask my advice, or had you 
any definite plan of your own ?” 

“ I had.” And Hilary told it. 

“ A very good plan, and very generous in you to think 
of it. But I see two strong objections : first, whether it 
can be carried out ; secondly, whether it ought.” 

Hilary shrank, sensitively. 

“Not on my account, my dear, but your own. I often 
s$e people making martyrs of themselves for some worth- 
less character on whom the sacrifice is utterly wasted. I 
object to this, as I would object to throwing myself or my 
friend into a blazing house, unless I were morally certain 
there was a life to be saved. Is there in this case ?” 

“ I think there is ! I trust in Heaven there is !” said Hi- 
lary, earnestly. 

There was both pleasure and pity expressed in Miss Bal- 


220 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


quidder’s countenance as she replied, “ Be it so : that is a 
matter on which no one can judge except yourself. But 
on the other matter you ask my advice, and I must give 
it. To maintain two ladies and pay a debt of eighty pounds 
out of one hundred a year is simply impossible.” 

“With Johanna’s income and mine it will be a hundred 
and twenty pounds and some odd shillings a year.” 

“You accurate girl! But even with this it can not be 
done, unless you were to live in a manner so restricted in 
the commonest comforts that at your sister’s age she would 
be sure to suffer. You must look on the question from all 
sides, my dear. You must be just to others as well as to 
that young man, who seems never to — But I will leave 
him unjudged.” 

They were both silent for a minute, and then Miss Bal- 
quidder said : “ I feel certain there is but one rational way 
of accomplishing the thing, if you are bent upon doing it, 
if your own judgment and conscience tell you it ought to 
be done. Is it so ?” 

“ Yes,” said Hilary, firmly. 

The old Scotswoman took her hand with a warm press- 
ure. “Very well. I don’t blame you. I might have done 
the same myself. Now to my plan. Miss Leaf, have you 
known me long enough to confer on me the benediction — 
one of the few that we rich folk possess — ‘ It is more bless- 
ed to give than to receive ?’ ” 

“I don’t quite understand.” 

“ Then allow me to explain. I happen to know this cred- 
itor of your nephew’s. lie being a tailor and an outfitter, 
we have had dealings together in former times, and I know 
him to be a hard man, an unprincipled man, such a one as 
no young woman should have to do with, even in business 
relations. To be in his power, as you would be for some 
years if your scheme of gradual payment were carried out, 
is the last thing I should desire for you. Let me suggest 
another way. Take me for your creditor instead of him. 
Pay him at once, and I will write you a check for the 
amount.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


221 


The thing was put so delicately, in such an ordinary 
manner, as if it were a mere business arrangement, that at 
first Hilary hardly perceived all it implied. When she did 
— when she found that it was in plain terms a gift or loan 
of eighty pounds offered by a person almost a stranger, she 
was at first quite bewildered. Then (ah ! let us not blame 
her if she carried to a morbid excess that noble independ- 
ence which is the foundation of all true dignity in man or 
woman) she shrunk back into herself, overcome with an- 
noyance and shame. At last she forced herself to say, 
though the words came out rather coldly, 

“ You are very good, and I am exceedingly obliged to 
you ; but I never borrowed money in my life. It is quite 
impossible.” 

“Very well; I can understand your feelings. I beg your 
pardon,” replied Miss Balquidder, also somewhat coldly. 

They sat silent and awkward, and then the elder lady 
took out a pencil and began to make calculations in her 
memorandum-book. 

“ I am reckoning what is the largest sum per month that 
you could reasonably be expected to spare, and how you 
may make the most of what remains. Are you aware that 
London lodgings are very expensive ? I am thinking that 
if you were to exchange out of the Kensington shop into 
another I have at Richmond, I could offer you the first 
floor above it for much less rent than you pay Mrs. Jones, 
and you could have your sister living with you.” 

“ Ah ! that would make us both so much happier ! How 
good you are !” 

“You will see I only wish to help you to help yourself, 
not to put you under any obligation, though I can not 
see any thing so very terrible in your being slightly in- 
debted to an old woman who has neither chick nor child, 
and is at perfect liberty to do what she likes with her 
own.” 

There was a pathos in the tone which smote Hilary into 
quick contrition. 

“ Forgive me ! But I have such a horror of borrowing 


222 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


money — you must know why after wliat I have told you 
of our family. You must surely understand — ” 

“ I do, fully ; hut there are limits even to independence. 
A person who, for his own pleasure, is ready to take money 
from any body and every body, without the slightest pros- 
pect or intention of returning it, is quite different from a 
friend who in a case of emergency accepts help from an- 
other friend, being ready and willing to take every means 
of repayment, as I knew you were, and meant you to be. 

I meant, as you suggested, to stop out of your salary so 
much per month, till I had my eighty pounds safe back 
again.” 

“ But suppose you never had it back ? I am young and 
strong ; still I might fall ill— I might die, and you never 
be repaid.” 

“ Yes, I should,” said Miss Balquidder, with a serious 
smile. “ You forget, my dear bairn, ‘ Inasmuch as ye have 
done it to one of these little ones , ye have done it unto me.’ 

‘ He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.’ I have lent 
Him a good deal at different times, and He has always paid 
me back with usury.” 

There was something at once solemn and a little sad in 
’ the way the old lady spoke. Hilary forgot her own side 
of the subject — her pride, her humiliation. 

“ But do you not think, Miss Balquidder, that one ought 
to work on, struggle on, to the last extremity, before one 
accepts an obligation, most of all a money obligation ?” 

“ I do, as a general principle. Yet money is not the great- 
est thing in this world, that a pecuniary debt should be the 
worst to bear. And sometimes one of the kindest acts you 
can do to a fellow-creature — one that touches and softens 
his heart, nay, perhaps wins it to you for life, is to accept a 
favor from him.” 

Hilary made no reply. 

“ I speak a little from experience. I have not had a very 
happy life myself— at least most people would say so if 
they knew it ; but the Lord has made it up to me by giv- 
ing me the means of bringing happiness, in money as well 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


223 


as other ways, to other people. Most of us have our fa- 
vorite luxuries ; this is mine. I like to do people good ; I 
like, also — though maybe that is a mean weakness — to feel 
that I do it. If all whom I have been made instrumental 
in helping had said to me, as you have done, ‘ I will not be 
helped, I will not be made happy,’ it would have been rath- 
er hard for me.” 

And a smile, half humorous, half sad, came over the hard- 
featured face, spiritualizing its whole expression. 

Hilary wavered. She compared her own life, happy still, 
and hopeful, for all its cares, with that of this lonely wom- 
an, whose only blessing was her riches, except the gener- 
ous heart which sanctified them, and made them such. 
Humbled, nay, ashamed, she took and kissed the kindly 
hand which had succored so many, yet which, in the in- 
scrutable mystery of Providence, had been left to go down 
to the grave alone ; missing all that is personal, dear, and 
precious to a woman’s heart, and getting instead only what 
Hilary now gave her — the half-sweet, half-bitter payment 
of gratitude. 

“ Well, my bairn, what is to be done ?” 

“ I will do whatever you think right,” murmured Hilary. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

It was not a cheerful morning on which to be married. 
A dense, yellow, London fog, the like of which the Misses 
Leaf had never yet seen, penetrated into every corner of 
the parlor at No. 15, where they were breakfasting dreari- 
ly by candle-light, all in their wedding attire. They had 
been up since six in the morning, and Elizabeth had dressed 
her three mistresses one after the other, taking exceeding 
pleasure in the performance ; for she w T as still little more 
than a girl, to whom a wedding was a wedding, and this 
was the first she had ever had to do with in her life. 

True, it disappointed her in some things. She was a lit- 
tle surprised that last evening had passed off just like all 


224 


MISTEESS A ND MAID. 


other evenings. The interest and bustle of packing soon 
subsided — the packing consisting only of the traveling 
trunk, for the rest of the trousseau went straight to Rus- 
sell Square, every means having been taken to ignore the 
very existence of No. 15; and then the three ladies had 
supper as usual, and went to bed at their customary hour, 
without any special demonstration of emotion or affection. 
To Elizabeth this was strange. She had not yet yet learn- 
ed the unspeakable bitterness of a parting where nobody 
has any grief to restrain. 

On a wedding morning, of course, there is no time to be 
spared for sentiment. The principal business appeared to 
be — dressing. Mr. Ascott had insisted on doing his part 
in making his new connections appear “ respectable” at his 
marriage, and for Selina’s sake they had consented. In- 
deed, it was inevitable : they had no money whatever to 
clothe themselves withal. They must either have accepted 
Mr. Ascott’s gifts — in which, to do him justice, he was both 
thoughtful and liberal — or they must have staid away from 
the wedding altogether, which they did not like to do “ for 
the sake of the family.” 

So, with a sense of doing their last duty by the sister, 
who would be, they felt, henceforward a sister no more, 
Miss Leaf attired herself in her violet silk and white China 
shawl, and Miss Hilary put on her silver-gray poplin, with 
a cardinal cape, as was then in fashion, trimmed with white 
swan’s-down. It was rather an elderly costume for a bride- 
maid ; but she was determined to dress warmly, and not 
risk, in muslins and laces, the health which to her now was 
money, life — nay, honor. 

For Ascott’s creditor had been already paid : Miss Bal- 
quidder never let grass grow under her feet. When Hi- 
lary returned to her sisters that day there was no longer 
any fear of public exposure ; she had the receipted bill in 
her hand, and she was Miss Balquidder’s debtor to the ex- 
tent of eighty pounds. 

But it was no debt of disgrace or humiliation, nor did 
she feel it as such. She had learned the lesson which the 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


225 


large-hearted rich can always teach the poor, that, while 
there is sometimes, to some people, no more galling chain, 
there is to others — and these are the highest natures too 
— no more firm and sacred bond than gratitude. But still 
the debt was there ; and Hilary would never feel quite easy 
till it was paid — in money, at least. The generosity she 
never wished to repay. She would rather feel it wrapping 
her round, like an arm that was heavy only through its ex- 
ceeding tenderness, to the end of her days. 

Nevertheless she had arranged that there was to be a 
regular monthly deduction from her salary ; and how, by 
retrenchment, to make this monthly payment as large as 
she could, was a question which had occupied herself and 
Johanna for a good while after they retired to rest, for 
there was no time to be lost. Mrs. Jones must be given 
notice to ; and there was another notice to be given, if the 
Richmond plan w^ere carried out ; another sad retrench- 
ment, foreboding which, when Elizabeth brought up sup- 
per, Miss Hilary could hardly look the girl in the face, and, 
■when she bade her good-night, had felt almost like a secret 
conspirator. 

For she knew that, if the money to clear this debt was 
to be saved, they must part with Elizabeth. 

No doubt the personal sacrifice would be considerable, 
for Hilary would have to do the work of their two rooms 
with her own hands, and give up a hundred little comforts 
in which Elizabeth, now become a most clever and efficient 
servant, had made herself necessary to them both. But 
the two ladies did not think of that at the moment ; they 
only thought of the pain of parting with her. They thought 
of it sorely, even though she was but a servant, and there 
was a family parting close at hand. Alas ! people must 
take what they earn. It was a melancholy fact that, of 
the two impending losses, the person they should miss 
most would be, not their sister, but Elizabeth. 

Both regrets combined made them sit at the breakfast 
table — the last meal they should ever take together as a 
family — sad and sorry, speaking about little else than the 


226 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


subject which presented itself as easiest and uppermost, 
namely, clothes. 

Finally, they stood all completely arrayed, even to bon- 
nets ; Hilary looking wonderfully bewitching in hers, which 
was the very pattern of one that may still be seen in a 
youthful portrait of our gracious queen — a large round 
brim, with a wreath of roses inside ; while Miss Leaf’s was 
somewhat like it, only with little bunches of white ribbon, 
“ for,” she said, “ my time of roses has gone by.” But her 
sweet faded face had a peace that was not in the other 
two — not even in Hilary’s. 

But the time arrived ; the carriage drew up at the door. 
Then nature and sisterly feeling asserted themselves for a 
minute. Miss Selina “ gave way,” not to any loud or in- 
decorous extent, to nothing that could in the least harm 
her white satin, or crumple her laces and ribbons ; but she 
did shed a tear or two — real honest tears — kissed her sis- 
ters affectionately, hoped they would be very happy at 
Richmond, and that they would often come to see her at 
Russell Square. 

“ You know,” said she, half apologetically, “ it is a great 
deal better for one of us at least to be married and settled. 
Indeed, I assure you, I have done it all for the good of my 
family.” 

And for the time being she devoutly believed she had. 

So it was all over. Elizabeth herself, from the aisle of 
St. Pancras Church, watched the beginning and ending of 
the show ; a very fine show, with a number of handsomely 
dressed people, wedding guests, who seemed to stare about 
them a good deal, and take little interest in either bride or 
bridegroom. The only persons Elizabeth recognized were 
her mistresses — Miss Leaf, who kept her veil down and 
never stirred ; and Miss Hilary, who stood close behind the 
bride, listening with downcast eyes to the beautiful mar- 
riage service. It must have touched her more than on her 
sister’s account, for a tear, gathered under each eyelash, 
silently rolled down the soft cheek and fell. 

“ Miss Hilary’s an angel, and he’ll be a lucky man that 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


227 


gets her” meditated her faithful “bower -maiden” of old, 
as, a little excited by the event of the morning, she stood 
by the mantlepiece and contemplated a letter which had 
come after the ladies had departed; one of these regular 
monthly Indian letters, after which, Elizabeth was sharp 
enough to notice, Miss Hilary’s step always grew lighter 
and her eye brighter for many days. 

“ It must be a nice thing to have somebody fond of one, 
and somebody to be fond of,” meditated she. And “ old- 
fashioned piece of goods” as she was — according to Mrs. 
Jones (who now, from the use she was in the Jones’s me- 
nage, patronized and confided in her extremely) — some lit- 
tle bit of womanly craving after the woman’s one hope 
and crown of bliss crept into the poor maid-servant’s heart. 
But it was not for the maid-servant’s usual necessity — a 
“ sweetheart” — somebody to “ keep company with it was 
rather for somebody to love, and perhaps take care of a 
little. People love according to their natures, and Eliza- 
beth’s was a strong nature ; its principal element being a 
capacity for passionate devotedness, almost unlimited in 
extent. Such women, who love most, are not always, in- 
deed very rarely, loved best. And so it was perhaps as 
well that poor Elizabeth should make up her mind, as she 
did very composedly, that she herself should never be mar- 
ried ; but after that glorious wedding of Miss Hilary’s to 
Mr. Lyon, should settle down to take care of Miss Leaf all 
her days. 

“ And if I turn out only half as good and contented as 
my mistress, it can’t be such a dreadful thing to be an old 
maid, after all,” stoically said Elizabeth Hand. 

The w T ords were scarcely out of her mouth when her at- 
tention was caught by some one in the passage inquiring 
for her — yes, actually for her. She could hardly believe 
her eyes when she perceived it was her new-found old ac- 
quaintance, Tom Cliffe. He w T as dressed very well, out of 
livery ; indeed, he looked so extremely like a gentleman 
that Mrs. Jones’s little girl took him for one, called him 
“ Sir,” and showed him into the parlor. 


228 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ All right. I thought this was the house. Uncommon 
sharp of me to hunt you out, wasn’t it, Elizabeth ?” 

But Elizabeth was a little stiff, flurried, and perplexed. 
Her mistresses were out; she did not know whether she 
ought to ask Tom in, especially as it must be into the par- 
lor : there was no other place to take him to. 

However, Tom settled the matter with a conclusive “Oh, 
gammon !” — sat himself down, and made himself quite com- 
fortable. And Elizabeth was so glad to see him — glad to 
have another chance of talking about dear old Stowbury. 
It could not be wrong ; she would not say a word about the 
family, not even tell him she lived with the Misses Leaf if she 
could help it. And Tom did not seem in the least curious. 

“Now, I call this quite a coincidence. I was stopping 
at St.Pancras Church to look at a wedding — some old city 
fogy who lives in Russell Square, and is making a great 
splash ; and there I see you, Elizabeth, standing in the 
crowd, and looking so nice and spicy — as fresh as an apple 
and as brisk as a bee. I hummed, and hawed, and whis- 
tled, but I couldn’t catch your eye ; then I missed you, and 
was vexed above a bit, till I saw some one like you going 
in at this door, so I just knocked and asked ; and here you 
are ! ’Pon my life, I am very glad to see you.” 

“Thank you, Tom,” said Elizabeth, pleased, even grate- 
ful for the trouble he had taken about her : she had so few 
friends — in truth, actually none. 

They began to talk, and Tom Cliffe talked exceedingly 
well. He had added to his natural cleverness a degree of 
London sharpness, the result of much “ knocking about” 
ever since childhood. Besides, his master, the literary gen- 
tleman, who had picked him out of the printing-office, had 
taken a deal of pains w T ith him. Tom was, for his station, 
a very intelligent and superior young man. Not a boy, 
though he was still under twenty, but a young man: that 
precocity of development which often accompanies a deli- 
cate constitution, making him appear, as he was indeed, in 
mind and character, fully six or seven years older than his 
real age. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


229 


He was a handsome fellow, too, though small ; dark- 
haired, dark-eyed, with regular and yet sensitive and mo- 
bile features. Altogether Tom Cliffe was decidedly inter- 
esting, and Elizabeth took great pleasure in looking at him, 
and in thinking, with a certain half motherly, half romantic 
satisfaction, that but for her, and her carrying him home 
from under the horse’s heels, he might, humanly speaking, 
have been long ago buried in Stowbury church-yard. 

“I have a ‘church-yard cough’ at times still,” said he, 
when speaking of this little episode of early life. “ I don’t 
think I shall ever live to be a middle-aged man.” And he 
shook his head, and looked melancholy and poetical ; nay, 
even showed Elizabeth some poetry that he himself had 
written on the subject, which was clever enough in its way. 

Elizabeth’s interest grew. An ordinary baker or butcher 
boy would not have attracted her in the least; but here 
was something in the shape of a hero, somebody who at 
once touched her sympathies and roused her admiration ; 
for Tom was quite as well informed as she was herself — 
more so, indeed. He was one of the many shrewd and 
clever working-men who were then beginning to rise up 
and think for themselves, and educate themselves. He at- 
tended classes at mechanics’ institutions, and young men’s 
debating societies, where every topic of the day, religion, 
politics, political economy, was handled freely, as the young 
do handle these serious things. He threw himself, heart 
and soul, into the new movement, which, like all revolu- 
tions, had at first its great and fatal dangers, but yet re- 
sulted in much good ; clearing the political sky, and bring- 
ing all sorts of hidden abuses under the sharp eyes of that 
great scourge of evil-doers — public opinion. 

Yet Elizabeth, reared under the wing of the conservative 
Misses Leaf, was a little startled when Tom Cliffe, who ap- 
parently liked talking and being listened to, gave her a 
long dissertation on the true principles of the Charter, and 
how Frost, Williams, and Jones — names all but forgotten 
now — were very ill-used men, actual martyrs. She was 
more than startled — shocked indeed — until there came a 


230 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


reaction of the deepest pity — when he confessed that he 
never went to church. He saw no use in going, he said ; 
the parsons were all shams, paid largely to chatter about 
what they did not understand ; the only real religion was 
that which a man thought out for himself, and acted out 
for himself; which was true enough, though only a half 
truth ; and innocent Elizabeth did not see the other half. 

But she was touched and carried away by the earnest- 
ness and enthusiasm of the lad, wild, fierce iconoclast as he 
was, ready to cast down the whole fabric of Church and 
State, though without any personal hankering after law- 
less rights and low pleasures. His sole idol was, as he said, 
intellect, and that was his preservation. 

Also, the fragile health which was betrayed in every 
flash of his eye, every flush of his sallow cheek, made Tom 
Cliffe, even in the two hours he staid with her, come very 
close to Elizabeth’s heart. It was such a warm heart, such 
a liberal heart, thinking so little of itself or of its own value. 

So here began to be told the old story, familiar in kitch- 
ens as parlors ; but, from the higher bringing-up of the two 
parties concerned, conducted in this case more after the 
fashion of the latter than the former. 

Elizabeth Hand was an exceptional person, and Tom had 
the sense to see that at once. He paid her no coarse atten- 
tions, did not attempt to make love to her; but he liked 
her, and he let her see that he did. True, she was not 
pretty, and she was older than he ; but that, to a boy of 
nineteen, is rather flattering than otherwise. Also, for there 
is a law even under the blind mystery of likings and fall- 
ings in love — a certain weakness in him, that weakness 
which generally accompanies the poetical nature, clung to 
the quiet, solid, practical strength of hers. He liked to 
talk and be listened to by those silent, admiring, gentle 
gray eyes ; and he thought it very pleasant when, with a 
motherly prudence, she warned him to be careful over his 
cough, and gave him a flannel breastplate to protect his 
chest against the cold. 

When he went away Tom was so far in love that, fob 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


231 


lowing the free and easy ways of his class, he attempted to 
give Elizabeth a kiss ; but she drew back so hotly that he 
begged her pardon, and slipped away rather confounded. 

“That’s an odd sort of young woman; there’s something 
in her,” said he to himself. “ I’ll get a kiss, though, by- 
and-by.” 

Meanwhile Elizabeth, having forgotten all about her din- 
ner, sat thinking, actually doing nothing but thinking, un- 
til within half an hour of the time when her mistresses 
might be expected back. They were to go direct to the 
hotel, breakfast, wait till the newly-married couple had de- 
parted, and then come home. They would be sure to be 
weary, and want their tea. 

So Elizabeth made every thing ready for them, steadily 
putting Tom Cliffe out of her mind. One thing she was 
glad of, that, talking so much about his own affairs, he had 
forgotten to inquire concerning hers, and was still quite 
ignorant even of her mistresses’ name. He therefore could 
tell no tales of the Leaf family at Stowbury. Still she de- 
termined at once to inform Miss Hilary that he had been 
here, but that, if she wished it, he should never come again. 
And it spoke well for her resolve that, while resolving, she 
was startled to find how very sorry she should feel if Tom 
Cliffe never came again. 

I know I am painting this young woman with a strange- 
ly tender conscience, a refinement of feeling, and a general 
moral sensitiveness which people say is seldom or never to 
be found in her rank of life. And why not? Because 
mistresses treat servants as servants, and not as women; 
because in the sharp, hard line they draw, at the outset, 
between themselves and their domestics, they give no 
chance for any womanliness to be developed ; and there- 
fore, since human nature is weak, and without help from 
without, a long degraded class can never rise ; sweethearts 
will still come crawling through back entries and down at 
area doors ; mistresses will still have to dismiss helpless 
and fallen, or brazen in iniquity, many a wretched girl who 
once was innocent ; or, if nothing actually vicious results, 


232 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


may have many a good, respectable servant, who left to 
get married, return, complaining that her “ young man,” 
whom she knew so little about, has turned out a drunken 
scoundrel of a husband, who drives her back to her old 
comfortable “ place” to beg for herself and her starving ba- 
bies a morsel of bread. 

When, with a vivid blush that she could not repress, 
Elizabeth told her mistress that Tom Cliffe had been to see 
her, the latter replied at first carelessly, for her mind was 
preoccupied. Then, her attention caught by the aforesaid 
blush, Miss Hilary asked, 

“How old is the lad?” 

“ Nineteen.” 

“ That’s a bad age, Elizabeth. Too old to be a pet, and 
rather too young for a husband.” 

“ I never thought of such a thing,” said Elizabeth, warm- 
ly — and honestly, at the time. 

“ Did he want to come and see you again ?” 

“ He said so.” 

“ Oh, well, if he is a steady, respectable lad, there can be 
no objection. I should like to see him myself next time.” 

And then a sudden sharp reflection that there would 
likely be no next time, in their service at least, made Miss 
Hilary feel quite a hypocrite. 

“ Elizabeth,” said she, “ we will speak about Tom Cliffe 
— is not that his name? — by-and-by. Now, as soon as 
tea is over, my sister wants to talk to you. When you 
are ready, will you come up stairs ?” 

She spoke in an especially gentle tone, so that by no 
possibility could Elizabeth fancy they were displeased with 
her. 

Now, knowing the circumstances of the family, Eliza- 
beth’s conscience had often smitten her that she must eat 
a great deal; that her wages, paid regularly month by 
month, must make a great hole in her mistress’s income. 
She was, alack ! a sad expense, and she tried to lighten her 
cost in every possible way. But it never struck her that 
they could do without her, or that any need would arise 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


233 


for their doing so. So she went into the parlor quite un- 
suspiciously, and found Miss Leaf lying on the sofa, and 
Miss Hilary reading aloud the letter from India. But it 
was laid quietly aside as she said, 

“Johanna, Elizabeth is here.” 

Then Johanna, rousing herself to say what must be said, 
but putting it as gently and kindly as she could, told Eliz- 
abeth, what mistresses often think it below their dignity 
to tell to servants, the plain truth— namely, that circum- 
stances obliged herself and Miss Hilary to retrench their 
expenses as much as they possibly could. That they were 
going to live in two little rooms at Richmond, where they 
would board with the inmates of the house. 

“ And so, and so — ” Miss Leaf faltered. It was very 
hard to say it with those eager eyes fixed upon her. 

Hilary took up the word — 

“ And so, Elizabeth, much as it grieves us, we shall be 
obliged to part with you. We can not any longer afford 
to keep a servant.” 

No answer. 

“ It is not even as it was once before, when we thought 
you might do better for yourself. We know, if it were 
possible, you would rather stay with us, and we would 
rather keep you. It is like parting with one of our own 
family.” And Miss Hilary’s voice too failed. “ However, 
there is no help for it ; we must part.” 

Elizabeth, recovered from her first bewildered grief, was 
on the point of bursting out into entreaties that she might 
do like many another faithful servant, live without wages, 
put up with any hardships, rather than be sent away. But 
something in Miss Hilary’s manner told her it would be 
useless — worse than useless, painful ; and she would do 
any thing rather than give her mistress pain. When, ut- 
terly unable to control it, she gave vent to one loud sob, 
the expression of acute suffering on Miss Hilary’s counte- 
nance was such that she determined to sob no more. She 
felt that, for some reason or other, the thing was inevita- 
ble ; that she must take up her burden, as her mistress had 


234 


MlSTliESS AND MAID. 


done, even though it were the last grief of all — leaving 
that beloved mistress. 

“ That’s right, Elizabeth,” said Miss Hilary, softly. “All 
these changes are very bitter to us also, but we must bear 
them. There is nothing lasting in this world except do- 
ing right, and being good, and faithful, and helpful to one 
another.” 

She sighed. Possibly there had been sad tidings in the 
letter which she still held in her hand, clinging to it as we 
do to something which, however sorely it hurts us, we 
would not part with for the whole world. But there was 
no hopelessness or despair in her tone, and Elizabeth caught 
the influence of that true courageous heart. 

“ Perhaps you may be able to take me back again soon, 
ma’am,” said she, looking toward Miss Leaf. “And mean- 
time I might get a place; Mrs. Jones has told me of sev- 
eral and she stopped, afraid lest it might be found out 
how often Mrs. Jones had urged her to “better herself,” 
and she had indignantly refused. “ Or” (a bright idea oc- 
curred) “ I wonder if Miss Selina, that is, Mrs. Ascott, would 
take me in at Russell Square ?” 

Hilary looked hard at her. 

“Would you really like that?” 

“ Yes, I should ; for I should see and hear of you. Miss 
Hilary, if you please, I wish you would ask Mrs. Ascott to 
take me.” 

And Hilary, much surprised — for she was well acquaint- 
ed with Elizabeth’s sentiments toward both Mr. Ascott and 
the late Miss Selina — promised. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

And now I leave Miss Hilary for a time — leave her in, if 
not happiness, great peace — peace which, after these stormy 
months, was an actual paradise of calm to both herself and 
Johanna. 

Their grief for Ascott had softened down. Its very hope- 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


236 


lessness gave it resignation. There was nothing more to 
be done ; they had done all they could, both to find him 
out and to save him from the public disgrace which might 
blight any hope of reformation. Now the result must be 
left in higher hands. 

Only at times fits of restless trouble would come; times 
when a sudden knock at the door would make Johanna 
shake nervously for minutes afterward; when Hilary walk- 
ed about every where with her mind preoccupied, and her 
eyes open to notice every chance passer-by ; nay, she had 
sometimes secretly followed down a whole street some fig- 
ure which, in its light, jaunty step, and long, fashionably- 
cut hair, reminded her of Ascott. 

Otherwise they were not unhappy, she and her dearest 
sister. Poor as they were, they were together, and their 
poverty had no sting. They knew exactly how much they 
would receive monthly, and how much they ought to spend. 
Though obliged to calculate every penny, still their income 
and their expenses were alike certain ; there was no anxie- 
ty about money matters, which of itself was an indescriba- 
ble relief. Also, there was that best blessing — peace at 
home. Never in all her days had Johanna known such an 
easy life ; sitting quietly in her parlor while Hilary was 
engaged in the shop below ; descending to dinner, where 
she took the head of the table, and the young people soon 
learned to treat her with great respect and even affection; 
then waiting for the happy tea in their own room, and the 
walk afterward in Richmond Park or along the Thames 
banks toward Twickenham. Perhaps it was partly from 
the contrast to that weary year in London; but never, in 
any spring, had the air seemed so balmy, or the trees so 
green. They brought back to Hilary’s face the youthful 
bloom which she had begun to lose, and, in degree, her 
youthful brightness, which had also become slightly over- 
clouded. Again she laughed and made her little domestic 
jokes, and regained her pretty way of putting things, so 
that every thing always appeared to have a cheerful, and 
even a comical side. 


236 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Also — for while we are made as we are, with capacity 
for happiness, and especially the happiness of love, it is sure 
to be thus — she had a little private sunbeam in her own 
heart which brightened outside things. After that sad 
letter from India which came on Selina’s wedding-day, ev- 
ery succeeding one grew more cheerful, more demonstra- 
tive, nay, even affectionate ; though still with that queer 
Scotch pride of his, that would ask for nothing till it could 
ask and have every thing, and give every thing in return 
— the letters were all addressed to Johanna. 

“ What an advantage it is to be an old woman !” Miss 
Leaf would sometimes say, mischievously, when she re- 
ceived them. But more often she said nothing, waiting in 
peace for events to develop themselves. She did not think 
much about herself, and had no mean jealousy over her 
child ; she knew that a righteous and holy love only makes 
all natural affections more sacred and more dear. 

And Hilary? She held her head higher and prouder*, 
and the spring trees looked greener, and the river ran 
brighter in the sunshine. Ah, Heaven pity us all ! it is a 
good thing to have love in one’s life ; it is a good thing, if 
only for a time, to be actually happy — not merely con- 
tented, but happy ! 

And so I will leave her, this little woman ; and nobody 
need mourn over her because she is working too hard, or 
pity her because she is obliged to work ; has to wear com- 
mon clothes, and live in narrow rooms, and pass on her 
poor weary feet the grand carriages of the Richmond gen- 
try, who are not a bit more well-born or well-educated 
than she ; who never take the least notice of her, except 
sometimes to peer curiously at the desk where she sits in 
the shop -corner, and wonder who “that young person 
with the rather pretty curls” can be. No matter, she is 
happy. 

How much happiness was there in the large house at 
Russell Square ? 

The Misses Leaf could not tell ; their sister never gave 
them an opportunity of judging. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


237 


“My son’s my son till he gets him a wife, 

But my daughter’s my daughter all her life.” 

And so, most frequently, is “ my sister.” But not in this 
case. It could not be ; they never expected it would. 

When, on her rare visits to town, Hilary called at Rus- 
sell Square, she always found Mrs. Ascott handsomely dress- 
ed, dignified, and gracious. Not in the slightest degree un- 
civil or unsisterly, but gracious — perhaps a thought too 
gracious. Most condescendingly anxious that she should 
stay to luncheon, and eat and drink the best the house af- 
forded, but never by any chance inviting her to stay to 
dinner. Consequently, as Mr. Ascott was always absent 
in the city until dinner, Hilary did not see him for months 
together, and her brother-in-law was, she declared, no more 
to her than any other man upon ’Change, or the man in 
the moon, or the Great Mogul. 

His wife spoke little, about him. After a few faint, for- 
mal questions concerning Richmond affairs, somehow her 
conversation always recurred to her own — the dinners she 
had been at, those she was going to give, her carriages, 
clothes, jewelry, and so on. She was altogether a very 
great lady, and Hilary, as she avouched laughingly — it 
was, in this case, better to laugh than to grieve — felt an 
exceedingly small person beside her. 

Nevertheless, Mrs. Ascott showed no unkindness — nay, 
among the various changes that matrimony had produced 
in her, her temper appeared rather to have improved than 
otherwise ; there was now seldom any trace of that touchy 
sharpness which used to be called “ poor Selina’s way.” 
And yet Hilary never quitted the house without saying to 
herself, with a sigh, the old phrase, “ Poor Selina !” 

Thus, in the inevitable consequences of things, her visits 
to Russell Square became fewer and fewer; she kept them 
up as a duty, not exacting any return, for she felt that was 
impossible, though still keeping up the ghostly shadow of 
sisterly intimacy. Nevertheless, she knew well it was but 
a shadow; that the only face that looked honest, glad 
welcome, or that she was honestly glad to see in her 


238 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


brother-in-law’s house, was the under house -maid, Eliza- 
beth Hand. 

Contrary to all expectations, Mrs. Ascott had consented 
to take Elizabeth into her service. With many stipula- 
tions and warnings never to presume on past relations, 
never even to mention Stowbury on pain of instant dismiss- 
al, still she did take her, and Elizabeth staid. At every 
one of Miss Hilary’s visits, lying in wait in the bedchamber, 
or on the staircase, or creeping up at the last minute to 
open the hall door, was sure to appear the familiar face, 
beaming all over. Little conversation passed between 
them — Mrs. Ascott evidently disliked it; still Elizabeth 
looked well and happy, and when Miss Hilary told her so 
she always silently smiled. 

But this story must tell the whole truth which lay be- 
neath that fond, acquiescing smile. 

Elizabeth was certainly in good health, being well fed, 
well housed, and leading, on the whole, an easy life ; happy, 
too, when she looked at Miss Hilary. But her migration 
from Mrs. Jones’s lodgings to this grand mansion had not 
been altogether the translation from Purgatory to Paradise 
that some would have supposed. 

The author of this simple story having — unfortunately 
for it — never been in domestic service, especially in the 
great houses of London, does not pretend to describe the 
ins and outs of their “ high life below stairs to repeat 
kitchen conversations, to paint the humors of the servants’ 
hall — the butler and housekeeper getting tipsy together, 
the cook courting the policeman, and the footman making 
love successively to every house-maid and lady’s-maid. 
Some writers have depicted all this, whether faithfully or 
not they know best ; but the present writer declines to at- 
tempt any thing of the kind. Her business is solely with 
one domestic, the country girl who came unexpectedly into 
this new world of London servant-life — a world essentially 
its own, and a life of which the upper classes are as igno- 
rant as they are of what goes on in Madagascar and Ota- 
heite. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


239 


This fact was the first which struck the unsophisticated 
Elizabeth. She, who had been brought up in a sort of feu- 
dal relationship to her dear mistresses, was astonished to 
find the domestics of Russell Square banded together into 
a community which, in spite of their personal bickerings 
and jealousies, ended in alliance offensive and defensive 
against the superior powers, whom they looked upon as 
their natural enemies. Invisible enemies certainly ; for 
u master” they hardly ever saw, and, excepting the lady’s- 
maid, were mostly as ignorant of “ missis.” The house- 
keeper was the middle link between the two estates— the 
person with whom all business was transacted, and to whom 
all complaints had to be made. Beyond being sometimes 
talked over, generally in a quizzical, depreciatory, or con- 
demnatory way, the heads of the establishment were no 
more to their domestics than the people who paid wages, 
and exacted in return certain duties, which most of them 
made as small as possible, and escaped whenever they 
could. 

If this be an exaggerated picture of a state of things per- 
liajDS in degree inevitable — and yet it should not be, for it 
is the source of incalculable evil, this dividing of a house 
against itself — if I have in any way said what is not true, 
I would that some intelligent “ voice from the kitchen” 
would rise up and tell us what is true, and whether it be 
possible on either side to find means of amending what so 
sorely needs reformation. 

Elizabeth sometimes wanted Tom Cliffe to do this — to 
“ write a book,” which he, eager young malcontent, was al- 
ways threatening to do, upon the evils of society, and espe- 
cially the tyranny of the upper classes. Tom Cliffe was 
the only person to whom she imparted her troubles and 
perplexities : how different her life was from that she had 
been used to; how among her fellow-servants there was 
not one who did not seem to think and act in a manner 
totally opposed to every thing she had learned from Miss 
Hilary ; how, consequently, she herself was teased, bullied, 
threatened, or, at best, “ sent to Coventry” from morning 
till night. 


240 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ I’m quite alone, Tom — I am, indeed,” said she, almost 
crying, the first Sunday night when she met him accident- 
ally in going to church, and, in her dreary state of mind, 
was exceedingly glad to see him. He consoled her, and 
even went to church with her, half promising to do the 
same next Sunday, and calling her “ a good little Christian, 
who almost inclined him to be a Christian too.” 

And so, with the vague feeling that she was doing him 
good and keeping him out of harm — that lad who had so 
much that was kindly and nice about him — Elizabeth con- 
sented, not exactly to an appointment, but she told him 
what were her “ Sundays out,” and the church she usually 
attended, if he liked to take the chance of her being there. 

Alack ! she had so few pleasures ; she so seldom got 
even a breath of outside air — it was not thought necessary 
for servants. The only hour she was allowed out was the 
church-going on alternate Sunday evenings. How pleasant 
it was to creep out then, and see Tom waiting for her un- 
der the opposite trees, dressed so smart and gentlemanlike, 
looking so handsome and so glad to see her — her, the poor 
countrified Elizabeth, who was quizzed incessantly by her 
fellow-servants on her oddness, plainness, and stupidity. 

Tom did not seem to think her stupid, for he talked to 
her of all his doings and plannings, vague and wild as those 
of the young tailor in “Alton Locke,” yet with a romantic 
energy about them that strongly interested his companion ; 
and he read her his poetry, and addressed a few lines to her- 
self, beginning, 

“ Dearest and best, my long familiar friend 

which was rather a poetical exaggeration, since he had al- 
together forgotten her in the interval of their separation. 
But she never guessed this, and so they both clung to the 
early tie, making it out to be ten times stronger than it 
really was, as people do who are glad of any excuse for be- 
ing fond of one another. 

Tom really was getting fond of Elizabeth. She touched 
the higher half of his nature — the spiritual and imagina- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


241 


tive half. That he had it, though only a working-man, and 
she too, though only a domestic servant, was most true : 
probably many more of their class have it than we are at 
all aware of. Therefore these two, being special individu- 
als, were attracted by each other ; she by him because he 
was so clever, and he by her because she was so good. For 
he had an ideal, poor Tom Cliffe ! and, though it had been 
smothered and laid to sleep by a not too regular life, it 
woke up again under the kind, sincere eyes of this plain, 
simple-minded, honest Elizabeth Hand. 

He knew she was plain, and so old-fashioned in her 
dress, that Tom, who was particular about such things, did 
not always like walking with her; but she was so interest- 
ing and true ; she sympathized with him so warmly — he 
found her so unfailingly and unvaryingly good to him 
through all the little humors and pettishnesses that al- 
most always accompany a large brain, a nervous tempera- 
ment, and delicate health. Her quietness soothed him, her 
strength of character supported him; he at once leaned 
on her and ruled over her. 

As to Elizabeth’s feelings toward Tom, they will hardly 
bear analyzing ; probably hardly any strong emotion will, 
especially one that is not sudden, but progressive. She 
admired him extremely, and yet she was half sorry for 
him. Some things in him she did not at all like, and tried 
heartily to amend. His nervous fancies, irritations, and 
vagaries she was exceedingly tender over ; she looked up 
to him, and yet took care of him ; this thought of him, 
and anxiety over him, became by degrees the habit of her 
life. People love in so many different ways; and per- 
haps that was the natural way in which a woman like Eliz- 
abeth would love, or creepi nto love without knowing it, 
which is either the safest or the saddest form which the 
passion can assume. 

Thus things went on, till one dark, rainy Sunday night, 
walking round and round the inner circle of the square, 
Tom expressed his feelings, at first in somewhat high- 
flown and poetical phrases, then melting into the one eter* 


242 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


nally old and eternally new “ Do yon love me ?” followed 
by a long, long kiss, given under shelter of the umbrella, 
and in mortal fear of the approaching policeman, who, 
however, never saw them, or saw them only as “ a pair of 
sweethearts” — too common an occurrence on his beat to 
excite any attention. 

But to Elizabeth the whole thing was new, wonderful ; 
a bliss so far beyond any thing that had ever befallen her 
simple life, and so utterly unexpected therein, that when 
she went to her bed that night she cried like a child over 
the happiness of Tom loving her, and her exceeding un- 
worthiness of the same. 

Then difficulties arose in her mind. “No followers al- 
lowed” was one of the strict laws of the Russell Square 
dynasty. Like many another law of that and of much 
higher dynasties, it was only made to be broken ; for stray 
sweethearts were continually climbing down area railings, 
or over garden walls, or hiding themselves behind kitchen 
doors. Nay, to such an extent was the system carried out, 
each servant being, from self-interest, a safe co-conspirator, 
that very often, when Mr. and Mrs. Ascott went out to din- 
ner, and the old housekeeper retired to bed, there were reg- 
ular symposia held below stairs — nice little supper-parties, 
where all the viands in the pantry and the wines in the 
cellar were freely used ; where every domestic had his or 
her “ young man” or “ young woman,” and the goings-on, 
though not actually discreditable, were of the most lively 
kind. 

To be cognizant of these, and yet to feel that, as there 
was no actual wickedness going on, she was not justified 
in “ blabbing,” was a severe and perpetual trial to Eliza- 
beth. To join them, or bring Tom among them as her 
“ young man,” was impossible. 

“No, Tom,” she said, when he begged hard to come in 
one evening — for it was raining fast, and he had a bad 
cough — “No, Tom, I can’t let you. If other folk break 
the laws of the house, I won’t ; you must go. I can only 
meet you out of doors.” 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


243 


And yet to do this surreptitiously, just as if she were 
ashamed of him, or as if there were something wrong in 
their being fond of one another, jarred upon Elizabeth’s 
honest nature. She did not want to make a show of him, 
especially to her fellow-servants : she had the true wom- 
an’s instinct of liking to keep her treasures all to herself, 
but she had also her sex’s natural yearning for sympathy 
in the great event of a woman’s life. She would have liked 
to have somebody unto whom she could say, “Tom has 
asked me to marry him,” and who would have answered 
cordially, “ It’s all right ; he is a good fellow : you are 
sure to be happy.” 

Not that she doubted this; but it would have been an 
additional comfort to have a mother’s blessing, or a sis- 
ter’s, or even a friend’s, upon this strange and sweet emo- 
tion which had come into her life. So long as it was thus 
kept secret there seemed a certain incompleteness and un- 
sanctity about even their happy love. 

Tom did not comprehend this at all. He only laughed at 
her for feeling so “ nesh” (that means tender, sensitive ; but 
the word is almost unexplainable to other than Stowbury 
ears) on the subject. He liked the romance and excite- 
ment of secret courtship — men often do ; rarely women, 
unless there is something in them not quite right, not en- 
tirely womanly. 

But Tom was very considerate, and though he called it 
“silly,” and took a little fit of crossness on the occasion, 
he allowed Elizabeth to write to her mother about him, 
and consented that on her next holiday she should go to 
Richmond, in order to speak to Miss Hilary on the same 
subject, and ask her also to write to Mrs. Hand, stating 
how good and clever Tom was, and how exceedingly hap- 
py was Tom’s Elizabeth. 

“ And won’t you come and fetch me, Tom ?” asked she, 
shyly. “ I am sure Miss Hilary would not object, nor Miss 
Leaf neither.” 

Tom protested he did not care two straws whether they 
objected or not ; he was a man of twenty, in a good trade 


244 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


— he had lately gone back to the printing, and being a 
clever workman, earned capital wages. He had a right 
to choose whom he liked, and marry when he pleased. If 
Elizabeth didn’t care for him, she might leave him alone. 

“ Oh, Tom !” was all she answered, with a strange gen- 
tleness that no one could have believed would ever have 
come into the manner of South Sea Islander. And quit- 
ting the subject then, she afterward persuaded him, and 
not for the first time, into consenting to what she thought 
right. There is something rather touching in a servant’s 
holiday. It comes so seldom. She must count on it for 
so long beforehand, and remember it for so long afterward. 
This present writer owns to a strong sympathy with the 
holiday-makers on the grand gala-days of the English cal- 
endar. It is a pleasure to watch the innumerable groups 
of family folk, little children, arid ’prentice lads, 

“Dressed in all their best, 

To walk abroad with Sally.” 

And the various “ Sallys” and their corresponding swains 
can hardly feel more regret than she when it happens to 
be wet weather on Easter week or at Whitsuntide. 

Whit-Monday, the day when Tom escaped from the print- 
ing-office, and Elizabeth got leave of absence for six hours, 
was as glorious a June day as well could be. As the two 
young people perched themselves on the top of the Rich- 
mond omnibus, and drove through Kensington, Hammer- 
smith, Turnham Green, and over Kew Bridge — Tom point- 
ing out all the places, and giving much curious information 
about them — Elizabeth thought there never was a more 
beautiful country or a more lovely summer day : she was, 
she truly said, “ as happy as a queen.” 

Nevertheless, when the omnibus stopped, she, with great 
self-denial, insisted on getting rid of Tom for a time. She 
thought Miss Hilary might not quite like Tom’s knowing 
where she lived, or what her occupation was, lest he might 
gossip about it to Stowbury people; so she determined to 
pay her visit by herself, and appointed to meet him at a 
certain hour on Richmond Bridge, over which bridge she 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


245 


watched him march sulkily, not without a natural pleasure 
that he should be so much vexed at losing her company for 
an hour or two. But she knew he would soon come to him- 
self— as he did, before he had been half a mile on the road 
to Hampton Court, meeting a young fellow he knew, and 
going with him over that grand old palace, which furnished 
them with a subject at their next debating society, where 
they both came out very strong on the question of hypo- 
critical priests and obnoxious kings, with especial reference 
to Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. 

Meanwhile Elizabeth went in search of the little shop — 
which nobody need expect to find at Richmond now — bear- 
ing the well-known name “Janet Balquidder.” Entering 
it, for there was no private door, she saw, in the far corner 
above the curtained desk, the pretty curls of her dear Miss 
Hilary. 

Elizabeth had long known that her mistress “ kept a 
shop,” and with the notions of gentility which are just as 
rife in her class as in any other, had mourned bitterly over 
this fact. But when she saw how fresh and well the young 
lady looked, how busily and cheerfully she seemed to work 
with her great books before her, and with what a composed 
grace and dignity she came forward when asked for, Eliz- 
abeth secretly confessed that not even keeping a shop had 
made or could make the smallest difference in Miss Hilary. 

She herself was much more changed. 

“ Why, Elizabeth, I should hardly have known you !” 
was the involuntary exclamation of her late mistress. 

She certainly did look very nice ; not smart — for her so- 
ber taste preferred quiet colors — but excessively neat and 
well dressed. In her new gown of gray “coburg,” her one 
handsome shawl, which had been honored several times by 
Miss Hilary’s wearing, her white straw bonnet and white 
ribbons, underneath which the smooth black hair and soft 
eyes showed to great advantage, she appeared, not “ like 
a lady” — a servant can seldom do that, let her dress be 
ever so fine — but like a thoroughly respectable, intelligent, 
and pleasant-faced young woman. 


246 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


And her blushes came and went so fast, she was so nerv- 
ous and yet so beamingly happy, that Miss Hilary soon sus- 
pected there was more in this visit than at first appeared. 
Knowing that with Elizabeth’s great shyness the mystery 
would never come out in public, she took an opportunity 
of asking her to help her in the bedroom, and there, with 
the folding-doors safely shut, discovered the whole secret. 

Miss Hilary was a good deal surprised at first. She had 
never thought of Elizabeth as likely to get married at all 
— and to Tom Cliffe. 

“ Why, isn’t he a mere boy ; ever so much younger than 
you are ?” 

“ Three years.” 

“ That is a pity — a great pity ; women grow old so much 
faster than men.” 

“ I know that,” said Elizabeth, somewhat sorrowfully. 

“ Besides, did you not tell me he was very handsome and 
clever ?” 

“ Yes ; and I’m neither the one nor the other. I have 
thought all that over too, many a time ; indeed I have, Miss 
Hilary. But Tom likes me — or fancies he does. Do you 
think” — and the intense humility which true love always 
has, struck into Miss Hilary’s own conscious heart a con- 
viction of how very true this poor girl’s love must be. “Do 
you think he is mistaken ? that his liking me — I mean in 
that sort of way — is quite impossible ?” 

“No, indeed, and I never said it — never thought it,” was 
the earnest reply. “ But consider ; three years younger 
than yourself; handsomer and cleverer than you are — ” 

Miss Hilary stopped ; it seemed so cruel to say such 
things, and yet she felt bound to say them. She knew 
her former “ bower-maiden” well enough to be convinced 
that if Elizabeth were not happy in marriage she would 
be worse than unhappy — might grow actually bad. 

“ He loves you now ; you are sure of that ; but are you 
sure that he is a thoroughly stable and reliable character? 
Do you believe he will love you always?” 

“ I can’t tell. Perhaps — if I deserved it,” said poor Eliz- 
abeth. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


247 


And, looking at the downcast eyes, at the thorough wom- 
anly sweetness and tenderness which suffused the whole 
face, Hilary’s doubts began to melt away. She thought 
how sometimes men, captivated by inward rather than out- 
ward graces, have fallen in love with plain women, or wom- 
en older than themselves, and actually kept to their attach- 
ment through life with a fidelity rare as beautiful. Per- 
haps this young fellow, who seemed, by all accounts, supe- 
rior to his class, having had the sense to choose that pearl 
in an oyster- shell, Elizabeth Hand, might also have the 
sense to appreciate her, and go on loving her to the end 
of his days. Anyhow, he loved her now, and she loved 
him, and it was useless reasoning any more about it. 

“ Come, Elizabeth,” cried her mistress, cheerfully, “I have 
said all my say, and now I have only to give my good wish- 
es. If Tom Cliffe deserves you, I am sure you deserve him, 
and I should like to tell him so.” 

“ Should you, Miss Hilary ?” and with a visible brighten- 
ing up Elizabeth betrayed Tom’s whereabouts, and her lit- 
tle conspiracy to bring him here, and her hesitation lest it 
might be “ intruding.” 

“Not at all. Tell him to come at once. I am not like 
my sister ; w T e always allow ‘ followers.’ I think a mistress 
stands in the relation of a parent for the time being, and 
that can not be a right or good love which is concealed 
from her, as if it were a thing to be ashamed of.” 

“ I think so too. And I’m not a bit ashamed of Tom, 
nor he of me,” said Elizabeth, so energetically that Miss 
Hilary smiled. 

“ Yery well ; take him to have his tea in the kitchen, and 
then bring him up stairs to speak to my sister and me.” 

At that interview, which of course was rather trying, 
Tom acquitted himself to every body’s satisfaction. He 
was manly, modest, self-possessed ; did not say much — his 
usual talkativeness being restrained by the circumstances 
of the case, and the great impression made upon him by 
Miss Hilary, who, he afterward admitted to Elizabeth, 
“ was a real angel, and he should write a poem upon her.” 


248 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


But the little he did say gave the ladies a very good im- 
pression of the intelligence and even refinement of Eliza- 
beth’s sweetheart. And though they were sorry to see 
him look so delicate, still there was a something better 
than handsomeness in his handsome face, which made them 
not altogether surprised at Elizabeth’s being so fond of 
him. 

As she watched the young couple down Richmond Street 
in the soft summer twilight — Elizabeth taking Tom’s arm, 
and Tom drawing up his stooping figure to its utmost ex- 
tent, both a little ill matched in height as they were in some 
other things, but walking with that air of perfect confi- 
dence and perfect contentedness in each other which always 
betrays, to a quick eye, those who have agreed to walk 
through the world together — Miss Hilary turned from the 
window and sighed. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Following Miss Hilary’s earnest advice that every thing 
should be fair and open, Elizabeth, on the very next day 
after that happy Whit-Monday, mustered up her courage, 
asked permission to speak to her mistress, and told her she 
was going to be married to Tom Cliffe ; not immediately, 
but in a year’s time or so, if all went w T ell. 

Mrs. Ascott replied sharply that it was no affair of hers, 
and she could not be troubled about it. For her part, she 
thought, if servants knew their own advantages, they would 
keep a good place when they had it, and never get married 
at all. And then, saying she had heard a good character 
of her from the housekeeper, she offered Elizabeth the place 
of upper house-maid, a young girl, a protegee of the house- 
keeper’s, being substituted in hers. 

“ And when you have sixteen pounds a year, and some- 
body to do all your hard work for you, I dare say you’ll 
think better of it, and not be so foolish as to go and get 
married.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


249 


But Elizabeth had her own private opinion on that mat- 
ter. She was but a woman, poor thing ! and two tiny 
rooms of her own, with Tom to care for and look after, 
seemed a far happier home than that great house, where she 
had not only her own work to do, but the responsibility 
of teaching and taking charge of that careless, stupid, pret- 
ty Esther, who had all the forwardness, untidiness, and un- 
conscientiousness of a regular London maid-servant, and 
was a sore trial to the staid, steady Elizabeth. 

Tom consoled her, in his careless but affectionate way ; 
and another silent consolation was the “little bits of things,” 
bought out of her additional wages, which she began to 
put by in her box — sticks and straws for the new sweet 
nest that was a-building : a metal tea-pot, two neat glass 
salt-cellars, and — awful extravagance ! — two real second- 
hand silver spoons — Tom did so like having things nice 
about him! These purchases, picked up at stray times, 
were solid, substantial, and useful ; domestic rather than 
personal ; and all with a view to Tom rather than herself. 
She hid them with a magpie-like closeness, for Esther and 
she shared the same room; but sometimes when Esther 
was asleep she would peep at them with an anxious, lin- 
gering tenderness, as if they made more of an assured re- 
ality what even now seemed so very like a dream. 

— Except, indeed, on those Sunday nights when Tom and 
she went to church together, and afterward took a walk, 
but always parted at the corner of the square. She never 
brought him in to the house, nor spoke of him to her fel- 
low-servants. How much they guessed of her engagement 
she neither knew nor cared. 

Mrs. Ascott, too, had apparently quite forgotten it. She 
seemed to take as little interest in her servants’ affairs as 
they in hers. 

Nevertheless, ignorant as the lower regions were in gen- 
eral of what was passing in the upper, occasionally rumors 
began to reach the kitchen that “master had been allow- 
ing up missis, rather !” And once, after the solemn dinner, 
with three footmen to wait on two people, was over, Eliza- 


250 


MlSTltlJSS AND MAID. 


beth, passing through the hall, caught the said domestics 
laughing together, and saying it was “ as good as a play ; 
cat and dog was nothing to it.” After which “ the rows up 
stairs” became a favorite joke in the servants’ hall. 

But still Mr. Ascott went out daily after breakfast, and 
came home to dinner ; and Mrs. Ascott spent the morning 
in her private sitting-room or “ boudoir,” as she called it ; 
lunched, and drove out in her handsome carriage, with her 
footman behind ; dressed elegantly for dinner, and presided 
at her own table with an air of magnificent satisfaction in 
all things. She had perfectly accommodated herself to her 
new position ; and if under her satins and laces beat a soli- 
tary, dissatisfied, or aching heart, it was nobody’s business 
but her own. At least, she kept up the splendid sham with 
a most creditable persistency. 

But all shams are dangerous things. Be the surface ever 
so smooth and green, it will crack sometimes, and a faint 
wreath of smoke betray the inward volcano. The like had 
happened once or twice, as on the day when the men-serv- 
ants were so intensely amused. Also Elizabeth, when put- 
ting in order her mistress’s bedroom, which was about the 
hour Mr. Ascott left for the city, had several times seen Mrs. 
Ascott come in there suddenly, white and trembling. Once, 
so agitated was she, that Elizabeth had brought her a glass 
of water ; and instead of being angry or treating her with 
the distant dignity which she had always kept up, her mis- 
tress had said, almost in the old Stowbury tone, “ Thank 
you, Elizabeth.” 

However, Elizabeth had the wisdom to take no notice, 
but to slip from the room, and keep her own counsel. 

At last, one day, the smouldering domestic earthquake 
broke out. There was “ a precious good row,” the foot- 
man suspected, at the breakfast-table ; and after breakfast, 
master, without waiting for the usual attendance of that 
functionary with his hat, and gloves, and a Hansom cab, 
had flung himself out at the hall door, slamming it after 
him with a noise that startled the whole house. Shortly 
afterward “ missis’s” bell had rung violently, and she had 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


251 


been found lying on the floor of her bedroom in a dead 
faint, her maid, a foolish little Frenchwoman, screaming 
over her. 

The frightened servants gathered round in a cluster, but 
nobody attempted to touch the poor lady, who lay rigid 
and helpless, hearing none of the comments that were free- 
ly made upon her, or the conjectures as to what master 
had done or said that produced this state of things. Mis- 
tress she was, and these four or five women, her servants, 
had lived in her house for months, but nobody loved her ; 
nobody knew any thing about her ; nobody thought of do- 
ing aught for her, till a kitchen-maid, probably out of for- 
mer experience in some domestic emergency, suggested, 
“ Fetch Elizabeth.” 

The advice was eagerly caught at, every body being so 
thankful to have the responsibility shifted to some other 
body’s shoulders; so in five minutes Elizabeth had the 
room cleared, and her mistress laid upon the bed, with no- 
body near except herself and the French maid. 

By-and-by Mrs. Ascott opened her eyes. 

“ Who’s that ? What are you doing to me ?” 

“Nothing, ma’am. It’s only me — Elizabeth.” 

At the familiar soothing voice the poor woman — a poor, 
wretched, forlorn woman she looked, lying there, in spite 
of all her grandeur — turned feebly round. 

“ Oh, Elizabeth, I’m so ill ! take care of me.” And she 
fainted away once more. 

It was some time before she came quite to herself, and 
then the first thing she said was to bid Elizabeth bolt the 
door and keep every body out. 

“ The doctor, ma’am, if he comes ?” 

“ m not see him. I don’t want him. I know what it is. 
I—” 

She pulled Elizabeth closer to her, whispered something 
in her ear, and then burst into a violent fit of hysterical 
weeping. 

Amazed, shocked, Elizabeth at first did not know what 
to do ; then she took her mistress’s head on her shoulder, 


252 


MISTBESS AND MAID. 


and quieted her by degrees almost as she would a child. 
The sobbing ceased, and Mrs. Ascott lay still a minute, till 
suddenly she clutched Elizabeth’s arm. 

“Mind you don’t tell. He doesn’t know, and he shall 
not ; it would please him so. It does not please me. Some- 
times I almost think I shall hate it because it is his child.” 

She spoke with a fierceness that was hardly credible ei- 
ther in the dignified Mrs. Peter Ascott or the languid Miss 
Selina. To think of Miss Selina’s expecting a baby ! The 
idea perfectly confounded poor Elizabeth. 

“ I don’t know very much about such matters,” said she, 
deprecatingly ; “ but I’m sure, ma’am, you ought to keep 
yourself quiet, and I wouldn’t hate the poor little baby if 
I were you. It may be a very nice little thing, and turn 
out a great comfort to you.” 

Mrs. Ascott lifted her heavy eyes to the kindly, sympa- 
thetic, womanly face — thorough woman, for, as Elizabeth 
went on, her heart warmed with the strong instinct which 
comes almost of itself. 

“ Think, to have a tiny little creature lying here beside 
you ; something your very own, with its pretty face look- 
ing so innocent and sweet at you, and its pretty fingers 
touching you.” Here Elizabeth’s voice quite faltered over 
the picture she had drawn. “ Oh, ma’am, I’m sure you 
would be so fond of it.” 

Human nature is strong. This cold, selfish woman, liv- 
ing her forty years without any strong emotion, marrying 
without love, and reaping, not in contrition, but angry bit- 
terness, the certain punishment of such a marriage, even 
this woman was not proof against the glorious mystery of 
maternity, which should make every daughter of Eve feel 
the first sure hope of her first-born child to be a sort of di- 
vine annunciation. 

Mrs. Ascott lay listening to Elizabeth. Gradually 
through her shut eyelids a few quiet tears began to flow. 

“ Do you mind me talking to you this way, ma’am ?” 

“ No, no ! Say what you like. I’m glad to have any 
body to speak to. Oh, I am a very miserable woman !” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


253 


Strange that Selina Ascott should come to betray, and 
to Elizabeth Hand, of all people, that she was a “misera- 
ble woman.” But circumstances bring about unforeseen 
confidences ; and the confidence once given is not easily 
recalled. Apparently the lady did not wish to recall it. 
In the solitude of her splendid house, in her total want of 
all female companionship — for she refused to have her sis- 
ters sent for — “ he would only insult them, and I’ll not have 
my family insulted”— poor Selina clung to her old servant 
as the only comfort she had. 

During the dreary months that followed, when, during 
the long, close summer days, the sick lady scarcely stirred 
from her bedroom, and, fretful, peevish, made the very most 
of what to women in general are such patiently borne and 
sacred sufferings, Elizabeth was her constant attendant. 
She humored all her whims, endured all her ill tempers, 
cheered her in her low spirits, and was, in fact, her mis- 
tress’s sole companion and friend. 

This position no one disputed with her. It is not every 
woman who has, as Miss Leaf used to say of Elizabeth, “ a 
genius for nursing ;” and very few patients make nursing 
a labor of love. The whole household were considerably 
relieved by her taking a responsibility for which she was 
so well fitted and so little envied. Even Mr. Ascott, who, 
when his approaching honors could no longer be concealed 
from him, became for the nonce a most attentive husband, 
and succumbed dutifully to every fancy his wife enter- 
tained, openly expressed his satisfaction in Elizabeth, ajid 
gave her one or two bright golden guineas in earnest of 
his gratitude. 

How far she herself appreciated her new and important 
position ; whether her duties were done from duty, or pity, 
or that determined self-devotedness which some women 
are always ready to carry out toward any helpless thing 
that needs them, I can not say, for she never told. Hot 
even to Miss Hilary, who at last was permitted to come 
and pay a formal visit; nor to Tom Cliffe, whom she now 
saw very rarely, for her mistress, with characteristic self- 


254 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ishness, would hardly let her out of her sight for half an 
hour. 

Tom at first was exceedingly savage at this ; by degrees 
he got more reconciled, and met his sweetheart now and 
then for a few minutes at the area gate, or wrote her long 
poetical letters, which he confided to some of her fellow- 
servants, who thereby got acquainted with their secret. 
But it mattered little, as Elizabeth had faithfully promised 
chat, w T hen her mistress’s trial was over, and every thing 
smooth and happy, she would marry Tom at once. So she 
took the jokes below stairs with great composure, feeling, 
indeed, too proud and content to perplex herself much 
about any thing. 

Nevertheless, her life was not easy, for Mrs. Ascott was 
very difficult to manage. She resisted angrily all the per- 
sonal sacrifices entailed by impending motherhood, and its 
terrors and forebodings used to come over her — poor weak 
woman that she was ! — in a way that required all Eliza- 
beth’s reasonings to counteract, and all her self-control to 
hide the presentiment of evil, not unnatural under the cir- 
cumstances. 

Yet sometimes poor Mrs. Ascott would take fits of pa- 
thetic happiness, when she busied herself eagerly over the 
preparations for the new-comer; would make Elizabeth 
take out, over and over again, the little clothes, and exam- 
ine them with childish delight. Sometimes she would gos- 
sip for hours over the blessing that was sent to her so late 
in life — half regretting that it had come so late; that she 
should be almost an old woman before her little son or 
daughter was grown up. 

“ Still, T may live to see it, you know : to have a pretty 
girl to take on my arm into a ballroom, or a big fellow to 
send to college : the Leafs always went to college in old 
times. He shall be Henry Leaf Ascott, that I am deter- 
mined on ; and if it’s a girl, perhaps I may call her Johan- 
na. My sister would like it — wouldn’t she ?” 

For more and more, in the strange softening of her na- 
ture, did Selina go back to the old ties. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


255 


“ I am not older than my mother was when Hilary was 
born. She died, but that was because of trouble. Women 
do not necessarily die in childbirth even at forty ; and in 
twenty years more I shall only be sixty — not such a very 
old woman. Besides, mothers never are old ; at least not 
to their children. Don’t you think so, Elizabeth ?” 

And Elizabeth answered as she best could. She too, out 
of sympathy or instinct, was becoming wondrous wise. 

But I am aware all this will be thought very uninterest- 
ing, except by women and mothers. Let me hasten on. 

By degrees, as Mrs. Ascott’s hour approached, a curious 
tranquillity and even gentleness came over her. Her fret- 
ful dislike of seeing any face about her but Elizabeth’s be- 
came less. She even endured her husband’s company for 
an hour of an evening, and at last humbled her pride enough 
to beg him to invite her sisters to Russell Square from Sat- 
urday to Monday, the only time when Hilary could be 
spared. 

“ For we don’t know what may happen,” said she to him, 
rather seriously. 

And though he answered, “ Oh, nonsense !” and desired 
her to get such ridiculous fancies out of her head, still he 
consented, and himself wrote to Miss Leaf, giving the for- 
mal invitation. 

The three sisters spent a happy time together, and Hilary 
made some highly appreciated family jokes about the hand- 
some Christmas box that Selina was going to be so kind as 
to give them, and the small probability that she would have 
much enjoyment of the Christmas dinner to which Mr. As- 
cott, in the superabundance of his good feeling, had invited 
his sisters-in-law. The baby, blessed innocent ! seemed to 
have softened down all things — as babies often do. 

Altogether, it was with great cheerfulness, affectionate- 
ness, and hope that they took leave of Selina ; she, with un- 
wonted consideration, insisting that the carriage should 
convey them all the way to Richmond. 

“ And,” she said,“ perhaps some of these days my son, if 
he is a son, may have the pleasure of escorting his aunts 


256 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


home. I shall certainly call him 4 Henry Leaf,’ and bring 
him up to be in every way a credit to our family.” 

When the ladies were away, and Mrs. Ascott had retired 
to bed, it was still only nine o’clock, and a bright moonlight 
night. Elizabeth thought she could steal down stairs and 
try to get a breath of fresh air round the square. Her 
long confinement made her almost sick sometimes for a 
sight of the outer world, a sight of — let me tell the entire 
truth — her own faithful Tom. 

She had not seen him now for fourteen days, and though 
his letters were very nice and exceedingly clever, still she 
craved for a look at his face, a grasp of his hand, perhaps 
even a kiss, long, and close, and tender, such as he would 
sometimes insist upon giving her, in spite of all policemen. 
His love for her, demonstrative as was his nature, had be- 
come to this still, quiet girl inexpressibly sweet — far sweet- 
er than she knew. 

It was a clear winter night, and the moon went climbing 
over the fleecy white clouds in a way that made beauty 
even in Russell Square. Elizabeth looked up at the sky, 
and thought how Tom would have enjoyed it, and wished 
he were beside her, and was so glad to think he would soon 
be beside her always, with all his humors and weaknesses, 
all his little crossnesses and complainings ; she could put 
up with all, and be happy through all, if only she had him 
with her and loving her. 

His love for her, though fitful and fanciful, was yet so 
warm and real that it had become a necessity of her life. 
As he always told her — especially after he had had one of 
his little quarrels with her — hers was to him. 

“Poor Tom, I wonder how he gets on without me ! Well, 
it won’t be for long.” 

And she wished she could have let him know she was 
out here, that they might have had a chat for just ten min- 
utes. 

Unconsciously she walked toward their usual trysting- 
place, a large, overhanging plane-tree on the Keppel Street 
corner of the square. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


257 


Surely, surely, that could not be Tom ! Quite impossi- 
ble, for he was not alone. Two people, a young man and a 
young woman, stood at the tryst, absorbed in conversation : 
evidently sweethearts, for he had one arm around her, and 
he kissed her unresisted several times. 

Elizabeth gazed, fascinated, almost doubting the evidence 
of her own senses. For the young man’s figure was so ex- 
cessively like Tom’s. At length, with the sort of feeling 
that makes one go steadily up to a shadow by the road- 
side, some ugly spectre that we feel sure, if we stare it out, 
will prove to be a mere imagination, she walked deliber- 
ately up to and past these “ sweethearts.” 

They did not see her ; they were far too much occupied 
with one another ; but she saw them, and saw at once that 
it was Tom, Tom’s own self, and with him her fellow-serv- 
ant Esther. 

People may write volumes on jealousy, and volumes will 
still remain to be written. It is, next to remorse for guilt, 
the sharpest, sorest, most maddening torment that human 
nature can endure. 

We may sit and gaze from the boxes at our Othettos and 
Biancas ; we may laugh at the silly heart-burnings be- 
tween Cousin Kate and Cousin Lucy in the ballroom, or 
the squabbles of Mary and Sally in the kitchen over the 
gardener’s lad, but there the thing remains. A man can 
not make love to two women, a woman can not coquette 
with two men, without causing in degree that horrible ag- 
ony, cruel as death, which is at the root of half the trage- 
dies, and the cause of half the crimes of this world. 

The complaint comes in different forms ; sometimes it is 
a case of slow poisoning, or of ordeal by red-hot irons, 
which, though not fatal, undermines the whole character, 
and burns ineffaceable scars into the soul. And people 
take it in various ways — some fiercely, stung by a sense of 
wounded self-love ; others haughtily : 

“ Pride’s a safe robe, I’ll wear it ; but no rags.” 

Others, again, humble, self-distrustful natures, whose only 


258 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


pricle came through love, ha^e nothing left them except 
rags. In a moment all their thin robes of happiness are 
torn off; they stand shivering, naked, and helpless before 
the blasts of the bitter world. 

This was Elizabeth’s case., After the first instant of 
stunned bewilderment and despair she took it all quite nat- 
urally, as if it were a thing which she ought all along to 
have known was sure to happen, and which was no more 
than she expected and deserved. 

She passed the couple, still unobserved by them, and 
then walked round the other side of the square deliberate- 
ly home. 

I am not going to make a tragic heroine of this poor 
servant-girl. Perhaps, people may say, there is nothing 
tragic about the incident. Merely a plain, quiet, old-fash- 
ioned woman, who is so foolish as to like a handsome young 
swain, and to believe in him, and to be surprised when he 
deserts her for a pretty girl of eighteen. All quite after 
the way things go on in the world, especially in the serv- 
ant-world ; and the best she can do is to get over it, or take 
another sweetheart as quickly as possible. A very common 
story after all, and more of a farce than a tragedy. 

But there are some farces which, if you look underneath 
the surface, have a good many of the elements of tragedy. 

I shall neither paint Elizabeth tearing her own hair nor 
Esther’s, nor going raging about the square in moonlight 
in an insane fit of jealousy. She was not given to “fits” 
under any circumstances or about any thing. All she felt 
went deep down into her heart, rooted itself, and either 
blossomed or cankered there. 

On this night she, as I said, walked round the square to 
her home, then quietly went up stairs to her garret, locked 
the door, and sat down upon her bed. 

She might have sat there for an hour or more, her bon- 
net and shawl still on, without stirring, without crying, al- 
together cold and hard like a stone, when she fancied she 
heard her mistress’s bell ring, and mechanically rose up 
and went down stairs to listen. Nothing was wanted, 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


259 


so she returned to her garret and crept to bed in the 
dark. 

When, soon afterward, Esther likewise came up to bed, 
Elizabeth pretended to be asleep. Only once, taking a 
stealthy glance at the pretty girl who stood combing her 
hair at the looking-glass, she was conscious of a sick sense 
of repulsion, a pain like a knife running through her at 
sight of the red young lips which Tom had just been kiss- 
ing, of the light figure which he had clasped as he used to 
clasp her. But she never spoke, not one word. 

Half an hour after she was roused by the nurse coming 
to her bedside. Mrs. Ascott was very ill, and was calling 
for Elizabeth. Soon the whole establishment was in con- 
fusion, and in the sharp struggle between birth and death 
Elizabeth had no time to think of any thing but her mis- 
tress. 

Contrary to every expectation, all ended speedily and 
happily ; and before he went off to the City next day, the 
master of the house, who, in the midst of his anxiety and 
felicity, had managed to secure a good night’s sleep and a 
good breakfast, had the pleasure of sending off a special 
messenger to the Times office with the notification, “ The 
Lady of Peter Ascott, Esq., of a son and heir.” 


CHAPTER XXIY. 

A fortnight’s time rather increased than diminished 
the excitement incident on the event at Russell Square. 

Never was there such a wonderful baby, and never was 
there such a fuss made over it. Unprejudiced persons 
might have called it an ugly, weakly little thing; indeed, 
at first there were such apprehensions of its dying that it 
had been baptized in a great hurry, “ Henry Leaf Ascott,” 
according to the mother’s desire, which in her critical posi- 
tion nobody dared to thwart. Even at the end of fourteen 
days the “ son and heir” was still a puling, sickly, yellow* 
faced baby. But to the mother it was every thing. 


260 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


From the moment she heard its first cry Mrs. Ascott’s 
whole nature seemed to undergo a change. Her very eyes 
— those cold blue eyes of Miss Selina’s — took a depth and 
tenderness whenever she turned to look at the little bun- 
dle that lay beside her. She never wearied of touching 
the tiny hands and feet, and wondering at them, and show- 
ing — to every one of the household who was favored with 
a sight of it — “ my baby,” as if it had been a miracle of 
the universe. She was so unutterably happy and proud. 

Elizabeth, too, seemed not a little proud of the baby. 
To her arms it had first been committed ; she had stood by 
at its first washing and dressing, and had scarcely left it 
or her mistress since. Nurse, a very grand personage, had 
been a little jealous of her at first, but soon grew conde- 
scending, and made great use of her in the sick-room, al- 
leging that such an exceedingly sensible young person, so 
quiet and steady, was almost as good as a middle-aged 
married woman. Indeed, she once asked Elizabeth if she 
was a widow, since she looked as if she had “-seen trouble 
and was very much surprised to learn she was single, and 
only twenty-three years old. 

Nobody else took any notice of her. Even Miss Hilary 
was so engrossed by her excitement and delight over the 
baby that she only observed, “ Elizabeth, you look rather 
worn-out; this has been a trying time for you.” And 
Elizabeth had just answered “Yes” — no more. 

During the fortnight she had seen nothing of Tom. He 
had written her a short note or two, and the cook told her 
he had been to the kitchen door several times asking for 
her, but, being answered that she was with her mistress up 
stairs, had gone away. 

“ In the sulks, most like, though he didn’t look it. He’s 
a pleasant-spoken young man, and I’m sure I wish you luck 
with him,” said Cookie, who, like all the other servants, 
was now exceedingly civil to Elizabeth. 

Her star had risen ; she was considered in the household 
a most fortunate woman. It was shortly understood that 
nurse— majestic nurse, had spoken so highly of her, that at 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


261 


the month’s end the baby was to be given entirely into 
her charge, with, of course, an almost fabulous amount of 
wages. 

“Unless,” said Mrs. Ascott, when this proposition was 
made, suddenly recurring to a fact which seemed hitherto 
to have quite slipped from her mind — “ unless you are still 
willing to get married, and think you would be happier 
married. In that case I won’t hinder you. But it would 
be such a comfort to me to keep you a little longer.” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” answered Elizabeth, softly, and 
busied herself with walking baby up and down the room, 
hushing it on her shoulder. If in the dim light tears fell 
on its puny face, God help her, poor Elizabeth ! 

Mrs. Ascott made such an excellent recovery that in three 
weeks’ time nobody was the least anxious about her, and 
Mr. Ascott arranged to start on a business journey to Ed- 
inburg, promising, however, to be back in three days for 
the Christmas dinner, which was to be a grand celebration. 
Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary were to appear thereat in their 
wedding-dresses ; and Mrs. Ascott herself took the most 
vital interest in Johanna’s having a new cap for the occa- 
sion. Nay, she insisted upon ordering it from her own 
milliner, and having it made of the most beautiful lace — 
the “ sweetest” old lady’s cap that could possibly be in- 
vented. 

Evidently this wonderful baby had opened all hearts, 
and drawn every natural tie closer. Selina, lying on the 
sofa, in her graceful white wrapper, and her neat close cap, 
looked so young, so pretty, and, above all, so exceedingly 
gentle and motherly, that her sisters’ hearts were full to 
overflowing. They acknowledged that happiness, like mis- 
ery, was often brought about in a fashion totally unfore- 
seen and incredible. Who would have thought, for in- 
stance, on that wretched night when Mr. Ascott came to 
Hilary at Kensington, or on that dreary, heartless wed- 
ding-day, that they should ever have been sitting in Se- 
lina’s room so merry and comfortable, admiring the baby, 
and on the friendliest terms with baby’s papa ? 


262 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


“ Papa” is a magical word, and let married people have 
fallen ever so wide asunder, the thought, “ my child’s moth- 
er,” “ my baby’s father,” must in some degree bridge the 
gulf between them. When Peter Ascott was seen stoop- 
ing, awkwardly enough, over his son’s cradle, poking his 
dumpy fingers into each tiny cheek in a half alarmed, half 
investigating manner, as if he had wondered how it had 
all come about, but, on the whole, was rather pleased than 
otherwise, the good angel of the household might have 
stood by and smiled, trusting that the ghastly skeleton 
therein might in time crumble away into harmless dust, 
under the sacred touch of infant fingers. 

The husband and wife took a kindly, even affectionate 
leave of one another. Mrs. Ascott called him “ Peter,” and 
begged him to take care of himself, and wrap up well that 
cold night. And when he was gone, and her sisters also, 
she lay on her sofa with her eyes open, thinking. What 
sort of thoughts they were, whether repentant or hopeful, 
solemn or tender, whether they might have passed away 
and been forgotten, or how far they might have influenced 
her life to come, none knew, and none ever did know. 

When there came a knock at the door, and a message 
for Elizabeth, Mrs. Ascott suddenly overheard it and turned 
round. 

“Who is wanting you — Tom Cliffe? Isn’t that the 
young man you are to be married to? Go down to him 
at once. And stay, Elizabeth, as it’s such a bitter night, 
take him for half an hour into the housekeeper’s room. 
Send her up stairs, and tell her I wished it, though I don’t 
allow * followers.’ ” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Elizabeth once more, and obey- 
ed. She must speak to Tom some time, it might as well 
be done to-night as not. Without pausing to think, she 
went down with dull, heavy steps to the housekeeper’s 
room. 

Tom stood there alone. He looked so exactly his own 
old self, he came forward to meet her so completely in his 
old familiar way, that for the instant she thought she must 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


263 


be under some dreadful delusion ; that the moonlight night 
in the square must have been all a dream ; Esther, still the 
silly little Esther, whom Tom had often heard of and 
laughed at ; and Tom, her own Tom, who loved nobody 
but her. 

“ Elizabeth, what an age it is since I’ve had a sight of 
you !” 

But, though the manner was warm as ever, 

“ In his tone 

A something smote her, as if Duty tried 
To mock the voice of Love, how long since flown,” 

and quiet as she stood, Elizabeth shivered in his arms. 

“ Why, what’s the matter? Aren’t you glad to see me ? 
Give me another kiss, my girl, do !” 

He took it ; and she crept away from him and sat down. 

“ Tom, I’ve got something to say to you, and I’d better 
say it at once.” 

“ To be sure. ’Tisn’t any bad news from home, is it ? 
Or” — looking uneasily at her — “ I haven’t vexed you, have 
I?” 

“ Vexed me,” she repeated, thinking what a small, foolish 
word it was to express what had happened and what she 
had been suffering. “No, Tom, not vexed me exactly. 
But I want to ask you a question. Who was it that you 
stood talking with, under our tree in the square, between 
nine and ten o’clock this night three weeks ago ?” 

Though there was no anger in the voice, it was so serious 
and deliberate that it made Tom start. 

“ Three weeks ago ; how can I possibly tell ?” 

“Yes, you can; for it was a fine moonlight night, and 
you stood there a long time.” 

“ Under the tree, talking to somebody ?” What non- 
sense ! Perhaps it wasn’t me at all.” 

“ It was, for I saw you.” 

“The devil you did !” muttered Tom. 

“Don’t be angry, only tell me the plain truth. The 
young woman that was with you was our Esther here, 
wasn’t she ?” 


264 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


For a moment Tom looked altogether confounded. Then 
he tried to recover himself, and said, crossly, “ Well, and 
if it was, where’s the harm ? Can’t a man he civil to a 
pretty girl without being called over the coals in this 
way ?” 

Elizabeth made no answer, at least not immediately. At 
last she said, in a very gentle, subdued voice, 

“ Tom, are you fond of Esther ? You would not kiss her 
if you were not fond of her. Do you like her as — as you 
used to like me ?” 

And she looked right up into his eyes. Hers had no re- 
proach in them, only a piteous entreaty, the last clinging 
to a hope which she knew to be false. 

“ Like Esther ? Of course I do. She’s a nice sort of 
girl, and we’re very good friends.” 

“ Tom, a man can’t be 4 friends,’ in that sort of way, with 
a pretty girl of eighteen, when he is going to be married 
to somebody else. At least, in my mind, he ought not.” 

Tom laughed in a confused manner. “ I say, you’re jeal- 
ous, and you’d better get over it.” 

Was she jealous ? was it all fancy, folly ? Did Tom stand 
there, true as steel, without a feeling in his heart that she 
did not share, without a hope in which she was not united, 
holding her, and preferring her, with that individuality and 
unity of love which true love ever gives and exacts, as it 
has a right to exact ? 

Not that poor Elizabeth reasoned in this way, but she 
felt the thing by instinct without reasoning. 

“ Tom,” she said, “ tell me outright, just as if I was some- 
body else, and had never belonged to you at all, do you 
love Esther Martin ?” 

Truthful people enforce truth. Tom might be fickle, but 
he was not deceitful ; he could not look into Elizabeth’s 
eyes and tell her a deliberate lie ; somehow he dared not. 

“Well, then — since you will have it out of me — I think 
I do.” 

So Elizabeth’s “ ship went down.” It might have been 
a very frail vessel, that nobody in their right senses would 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


265 


have trusted any treasure with, still she did ; and it was 
all she had, and it went down to the bottom like a stone. 

It is astonishing how soon the sea closes over this sort 
of wreck, and how quietly people take — when they must 
take, and there is no more disbelieving it — the truth which 
they would have given their lives to prove was an impos- 
sible lie. 

For some minutes Tom stood facing the fire, and Eliza- 
beth sat on her chair opposite without speaking. Then 
she took off her brooch, the only love-token he had given 
her, and put it into his hand. 

“ What’s this for ?” asked he, suddenly. 

“You know. You’d better give it to Esther. It’s Es- 
ther, not me, you must marry now.” 

And the thought of Esther, giddy, flirting, useless Es- 
ther, as Tom’s wife, was almost more than she could bear. 
The sting of it put even into her crushed humility a certain 
honest self-assertion. 

“ I’m not going to blame you, Tom, but I think I’m as 
good as she. I’m not pretty, I know, nor lively, nor young 
— at least I’m old for my age ; but I was worth something. 
You should not have served me so.” 

Tom said, the usual excuse, that he “ couldn’t help it.” 
And suddenly turning round, he begged her to forgive him, 
and not forsake him. 

She forsake Tom ! Elizabeth almost smiled. 

“ I do forgive you ; I’m not a bit angry with you. If I 
ever was I have got over it.” 

“That’s right. You’re a dear soul. Do you think I 
don’t like you, Elizabeth ?” 

“ Oh yes,” she said, sadly, “ I dare say you do, a little, in 
spite of Esther Martin. But that’s not my way of liking, 
and I couldn’t stand it.” 

“ What couldn’t you stand ?” 

“ Your kissing me to-day, and another girl to-morrow ; 
your telling me I was every thing to you one week, and 
saying exactly the same thing to another girl the next. It 
would be hard enough to bear if we were only friends, but 


266 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


as sweethearts, as husband and wife, it would be impossi- 
ble. No, Tom, I tell you the truth, I could not stand it.” 

She spoke strongly, unhesitatingly, and for an instant 
there flowed out of her soft eyes that wild, fierce spark, 
latent even in these quiet humble natures, which is danger- 
ous to meddle with. 

Tom did not attempt it. He felt all was over. Whether 
he had lost or gained — whether he was glad or sorry, he 
hardly knew. 

“ I’m not going to take this back, anyhow,” he said, u fid- 
dling” with the brooch ; and then going up to her, he at- 
tempted, with trembling hands, to refasten it in her collar. 

The familiar action, his contrite look, were too much. 
People who have once loved one another, though the love 
is dead (for love can die), are not able to bury it all at 
once, or if they do, its pale ghost will still come knocking 
at the door of their hearts, “ Let me in, let me in !” 

Elizabeth ought, I know, in proper feminine dignity, to 
have bade Tom farewell without a glance or a touch. But 
she did not. When he had fastened her brooch she looked 
up in his familiar face a sorrowful, wistful, lingering look, 
and then clung about his neck : 

“ Oh Tom, Tom, I was so fond of you !” 

And Tom mingled his tears with hers, and kissed her 
many times, and even felt his old affection returning, mak- 
ing him half oblivious of Esther; but mercifully — for love 
rebuilt upon lost faith is like a house founded upon sands 
- — the door opened, and Esther herself came in. 

Laughing, smirking, pretty Esther, who, thoughtless as 
she was, had yet the sense to draw back when she saw 
them. 

“ Come here, Esther !” Elizabeth called, imperatively ; and 
she came. 

“ Esther, I’ve given up Tom ; you may take him if he 
wants you. Make him a good wife, and I’ll forgive you. 
If not — ” 

She could not say another word. She shut the door upon 
them, andcrept up stairs, conscious only of one thought — 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


2G7 


if she only could get away from them, and never see either 
of their faces any more ! 

And in this Fate was kind to her, though in that awful 
way in which Fate — say rather Providence — often works; 
cutting, with one sharp blow, some knot that our poor, fee- 
ble, mortal fingers have been long laboring at in vain, or 
making that which seemed impossible to do the most nat- 
ural, easy, and only thing to be done. 

How strangely often in human life “ one woe doth tread 
upon the other’s heel !” How continually, while one of 
those small private tragedies that I have spoken of is being 
enacted within, the actors are called upon to meet some 
other tragedy from without, so that external energy coun- 
teracts inward emotion, and holy sympathy with another’s 
sufferings stifles all personal pain. That truth about sor- 
rows coming “ in battalions” may have a divine meaning 
in it — may be one of those mysterious laws which guide 
the universe — laws that w T e can only trace in fragments, 
and guess at the rest, believing, in deep humility, that one 
day we shall “ know even as we are known.” 

Therefore I ask no pity for Elizabeth, because ere she had 
time to collect herself, and realize in her poor confused 
mind that she had indeed said good-by to Tom, given him 
up and parted from him forever, she was summoned to her 
mistress’s room, there to hold a colloquy outside the door 
with the seriously-perplexed nurse. 

One of those sudden changes had come which sometimes, 
after all seems safe, strike terror into a rejoicing household, 
and end by carrying away, remorseless, the young wife from 
her scarcely tasted bliss, the mother of many children from 
her close circle of happy duties and yearning loves. 

Mrs. Ascott was ill. Either she had taken cold, or been 
too much excited, or, in the over-confidence of her recovery, 
some slight neglect had occurred — some trifle which no- 
body thinks of till afterward, and which yet proves the fa- 
tal cause, the “ little pin” that 


‘ ‘ Bores through the castle wall’ 


268 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


of mortal hope, and King Death enters in all his awful 
state. 

Nobody knew it or dreaded it; for, though Mrs. Ascott 
was certainly ill, she was not at first very ill; and there 
being no telegraphs in those days, no one thought of send- 
ing for either her husband or her sisters. But that very 
hour, when Elizabeth went up to her mistress, and saw the 
flush on her cheek and the restless expression of her eye, 
King Death had secretly crept in at the door of the man- 
sion in Russell Square. 

The patient was carefully removed back into her bed. 
She said little, except once, looking up uneasily — 

“ I don’t feel quite myself, Elizabeth.” 

And when her servant soothed her in the long-familiar 
way, telling her she would be better in the morning, she 
smiled contentedly, and turned to go to sleep. 

Nevertheless, Elizabeth did not go to her bed, but sat 
behind the curtain, motionless, for an hour or more. 

Toward the middle of the night, when her baby -was 
brought to her, and the child instinctively refused its nat- 
ural food, and began screaming violently, Mrs. Ascott’s 
troubled look returned. 

“ What is the matter ? What are you doing, nurse ? I 
won’t be parted from my baby — I won’t, I say !” 

And when, to soothe her, the little thing was again put 
into her arms, and again turned from her, a frightful ex- 
pression came into the mother’s face. 

“ Am I going to be ill ? Is baby — ” 

She stopped ; and as nurse determinately carried it 
away, she attempted no resistance, only followed it across 
the room with eager eyes. It was the last glimmer of 
reason there. From that time her mind began to wander, 
and before morning she was slightly delirious. 

Still nobody apprehended danger. Nobody really knew 
any thing about the matter except nurse, and she, with a 
selfish fear of being blamed for carelessness, resisted send- 
ing for the doctor till his usual hour of calling. In that 
large house, as in many other large houses, every body’s 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


2G9 


business was nobody’s business, and a member of the fam- 
ily, even the mistress, might easily be sick or dying in some 
room therein, while all things else went on just as usual, 
and no one was any the wiser. 

About noon even Elizabeth’s ignorance was roused up 
to the conviction that something was very wrong with 
Mrs. Ascott, and that nurse’s skill could not counteract it. 
On her own responsibility she sent, or rather she went to 
fetch the doctor. He came , and his fiat threw the whole 
household into consternation. 

Now they knew that the poor lady whose happiness had 
touched the very stoniest hearts in the establishment hov- 
ered upon the brink of the grave. Now all the women- 
servants, down to the little kitchen-maid with her dirty 
apron at her eyes, crept up stairs, one after the other, to 
the door of what had been such a silent, mysterious room, 
and listened, unhindered, to the ravings that issued thence. 
“ Poor missis,” and the “ poor little baby,” were spoken of 
softty at the kitchen dinner-table, and confidentially sym- 
pathized over with inquiring tradespeople at the area gate. 
A sense of awe and suspense stole over the whole house, 
gathering thicker hour by hour of that dark December day. 

When her mistress was first pronounced “in danger,” 
Elizabeth, aware that there was no one to act but herself, 
had taken a brief opportunity to slip from the room and 
w r rite two letters, one to her master in Edinburg, and the 
other to Miss Hilary. The first she gave to the footman 
to post; the second she charged him to send by special 
messenger to Richmond. But he, being lazily inclined, or 
else thinking that, as the order was only given by Eliza- 
beth, it was of comparatively little moment, posted them 
both. So vainly did the poor girl watch and wait ; neither 
Miss Leaf nor Miss Hilary came. 

By night Mrs. Ascott’s delirium began to subside, but 
her strength was ebbing fast. Two physicians — three — 
stood by the unconscious woman, and pronounced that all 
hope was gone, if, indeed, the case had not been hopeless 
from the beginning. 


270 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“Where is her husband? Has she no relations — no 
mother or sisters?” asked the fashionable physician, Sir 

, touched by the sight of this poor lady dying 

alone, with only a nurse and a servant about her. “ If she 
has, they ought to be sent for immediately.” 

Elizabeth ran down stairs, and rousing the old butler 
from his bed, prevailed on him to start immediately in the 
carriage to bring back Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary. It would 
be midnight before he reached Richmond ; still it must be 
done. 

“ I’ll do it, my girl,” said he, kindly ; “ and I’ll tell them 
as gently as I can. Never fear.” 

When Elizabeth returned to her mistress’s room the doc- 
tors were all gone, and nurse, standing at the foot of Mrs. 
Ascott’s bed, was watching her with the serious look which 
even a hireling or a stranger wears in the presence of that 
sight which, however familiar, never grows less awful — a 
fellow-creature slowly passing from this life into the life 
unknown. 

Elizabeth crept up to the other side. The change, un- 
describable yet unmistakable, which comes over a human 
face when the warrant for its dissolution has gone forth, 
struck her at once. 

Never yet had Elizabeth seen death. Her father’s she 
did not remember, and among her few friends and connec- 
tions none other had occurred. * At twenty-three years of 
age she was still ignorant of that solemn experience which 
every woman must go through some time, often many 
times, during her life. For it is to women that all look in 
their extreme hour. Very few men, even the tenderest- 
hearted, are able to watch by the last struggle and close 
the eyes of the dying. 

For the moment, as she glanced round the darkened 
room, and then at the still figure on the bed,- Elizabeth’s 
courage failed. Strong love might have overcome this 
fear — the natural recoil of youth and life from coming into 
contact with death and mortality; but love was not ex- 
actly the bond between her and Mrs, Ascott, It was rather 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


271 


duty, pity, the tenderness that would have sprung up in 
her heart toward any body she had watched and tended 
so long. 

“ If she should die, die in the night, before Miss Hilary 
comes !” thought the poor girl, and glanced once more round 
the shadowy room, where she was now left quite alone. 
For nurse, thinking with true worldly wisdom of the pres- 
ervation of the “ son and heir,” which was decidedly the 
most important question now, had stolen away, and was 
busy in the next room, seeing various young women whom 
the doctors had sent, one of whom was to supply to the in- 
fant the place of the poor mother whom it would never 
know. 

There was nobody left but herself to watch this dying 
mother, so Elizabeth took her lot upon her, smothered 
down her fears, and sat by the bedside waiting for the 
least expression of returning reason in the sunken face, 
which was very quiet now. 

Consciousness did return at last, as the doctors had said 
it would. Mrs. Ascott opened her eyes; they wandered 
from side to side, and then she said, feebly, 

“ Elizabeth, where’s my baby ?” 

What Elizabeth answered she never could remember; 
perhaps nothing, or her agitation betrayed her, for Mrs. 
Ascott said again, 

“Elizabeth, am I going to — to leave my baby ?” 

Some people might have considered it best to reply with 
a lie — the frightened, cowardly lie that is so often told at 
death-beds to the soul passing direct to its God. But this 
girl could not and dared not. 

Leaning over her mistress, she whispered as softly as she 
could, choking down the tears that might have disturbed 
the peace which, mercifully, seemed to have come with 
dying, 

“ Yes, you are going very soon — to God. He will watch 
over baby, and give him back to you again some day quite 
safe.” 

“Will He?” 


272 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


The tone was submissive, half inquiring, like that of a 
child learning something it had never learned before — as 
Selina was now learning. Perhaps even those three short 
weeks of motherhood had power so to raise her whole na- 
ture that she now gained the composure with which even 
the weakest soul can sometimes meet death, and had grown 
not unworthy of the dignity of a Christian’s dying. 

Suddenly she shivered. “ I am afraid ; I never thought 
of — this. Will nobody come and speak to me?” 

Oh, how Elizabeth longed for Miss Hilary, for any body, 
who would have known what to say to the dying woman ; 
who perhaps, as her look and words implied, till this hour 
had never thought of dying. Once it crossed the servant’s 
mind to send for some clergyman ; but she knew none, and 
was aware that Mrs. Ascott did not either. She had no 
superstitious feeling that any clergyman would do, just to 
give a sort of spiritual extreme unction to the departing 
soul. Her own religious faith was of such an intensely 
personal, silent kind, that she did not believe in any good 
to be derived from a strange gentleman coming and pray- 
ing by the bedside of a stranger, repeating set sayings 
with a set countenance, and going away again. And yet 
with that instinct which comes to almost every human soul, 
fast departing, Mrs. Ascott’s white lips whispered, “Pray.” 

Elizabeth had no words except those which Miss Leaf 
used to say night after night in the little parlor at Stow- 
bury. She knelt down, and in a trembling voice repeated 
in her mistress’s ear, “ Our father which art in heaven ,” to 
the end. 

After it Mrs. Ascott lay very quiet. At length she said, 
“ Please — bring — my — baby.” It had been from the first, 
and was to the last, “ my” baby. 

The small face was laid close to hers, that she might kiss 
it. 

“ He looks well ; he does not miss me much yet, poor 
little fellow !” And the strong natural agony came upon 
her, conquering even the weakness of her last hour. “ Oh, 
it’s hard, hard ! Will nobody teach my baby to remember 
me ?” 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


273 


And then lifting herself up on her elbow she caught hold 
of nurse. 

“ Tell Mr. Ascott that Elizabeth is to take care of baby. 
Promise, Elizabeth. Johanna is old — Hilary may be mar- 
ried — you will take care of my baby ?” 

“ I will — as long as I live,” said Elizabeth Hand. 

She took the child in her arms, and for almost another 
hour stood beside the bed thus, until nurse whispered, 
“ Carry it away ; its mother doesn’t know it now.” 

But she did ; for she feebly moved her fingers as if in 
search of something. Baby was still asleep, but Elizabeth 
contrived, by kneeling down close to the bed, to put the 
tiny hand under those cold fingers; they closed immedi- 
ately upon it, and remained so till the last. 

When Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary came in Elizabeth was 
still kneeling there, trying softly to take the little hand 
away; for the baby had w T akened and began its piteous 
wail. But it did not disturb the mother now. 

“ Poor Selina” was no more. Nothing of her was left to 
her child except the name of a mother. It may have been 
better so. 


CHAPTER XXY. 

“in memory of 
SELINA, 

THE BELOVED WIFE OF PETER ASCOTT, ESQ., 

OF RUSSELL SQUARE, LONDON, 

AND DAUGHTER OF 
THE LATE HENRY LEAF, ESQ., 

OF THIS TOWN. 

DIED DECEMBER 24, 1839, 

AGED 41 YEARS.” 

Such was the inscription which now, for six months, had 
met the eyes of the inhabitants of Stowbury, on a large, 
dazzlingly - white marble monument, the first that was 
placed in the church-yard of the New Church. 

What motive induced Mr. Ascott to inter his wife here 


274 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


— whether it was a natural wish to lay her, and some day 
lie beside her, in their native earth ; or the less creditable 
desire of showing how rich he had become, and of joining 
his once humble name, even on a tomb-stone, with one of 
the oldest names in the annals of Stowbury — nobody could 
find out. Probably nobody cared. 

The Misses Leaf were content that he should do as he 
pleased in the matter : he had shown strong but not exag- 
gerated grief at his loss ; if any remorse mingled therewith, 
Selina’s sisters happily did not know it. Nobody ever did 
know the full history of things except Elizabeth, and she 
kept it to herself. So the family skeleton was buried quiet- 
ly in Mrs. Ascott’s grave. 

Peter Ascott showed, in his coarse fashion, much sym- 
pathy and consideration for his wife’s sisters. He had 
them staying in the house till a week after the funeral was 
over, and provided them with the deepest and handsomest 
mourning. He even, in a formal way, took counsel with 
them as to the carrying out of Mrs. Ascott’s wdshes, and 
the retaining of Elizabeth in charge of the son and heir, 
which was accordingly settled. And then they went back 
to their old life at Richmond, and the widower returned 
to his solitary bachelor ways. He looked as usual ; went 
to and from the City as usual ; and his brief married life 
seemed to have passed away from him like a dream. 

Not altogether a dream. Gradually he began to wake 
up to the consciousness of an occasional child’s cry in the 
house — that large, silent, dreary house, where he was once 
more the sole, solitary master. Sometimes, when lie came 
in from church on Sundays, he would mount another flight 
of stairs, walk into the nursery at the top of the house, and 
stare with distant curiosity at the little creature in Eliza- 
beth’s arms, pronounce it a “fine child, and did her great 
credit !” and walk down again. He never seemed to con- 
sider it as his child, this poor old bachelor of so many years’ 
standing; he had outgrown apparently all sense of the 
affections or the duties of a father. Whether they ever 
would come into him; whether, after babyhood was passed. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


275 


he would begin to take an interest in the little creature who 
throve and blossomed into beauty— which, as if watched by 
guardian angels, dead mothers’ children seem often to do — 
was a source of earnest speculation to Elizabeth. 

In the mean time he treated both her and the baby with 
extreme consideration, allowed her to do just as she liked, 
and gave her indefinite sums of money to expend upon the 
nursery. 

When summer came, and the doctor ordered change of 
air, Mr. Ascott consented to her suggestion of taking a 
lodging for herself and baby near baby’s aunts at Rich- 
mond ; only desiring that the lodging should be as hand- 
some as could be secured, and that every other Sunday she 
should bring up his son to spend the day at Russell Square. 

And so, during the long summer months, the motherless 
child, in its deep mourning — which looks so pathetic on a 
very young baby — might be seen carried about in Eliza- 
beth’s arms every where. When, after the first six weeks, 
the wet-nurse left — in fact, two or three wet-nurses succes- 
sively were abolished— she took little Henry solely under 
her own charge. She had comparatively small experience, 
but she had common sense, and the strong motherly in- 
stinct which comes by nature to some women. Besides, 
her whole soul was wrapped up in this little child. 

From the hour when, even with her mistress dying be- 
fore her eyes, Elizabeth had felt a strange thrill of comfort 
in the new duty which had come into her blank life, she 
took to this duty as women only can w T hose life has become 
a blank. She received the child as a blessing sent direct 
from God ; by unconscious hands — for Mrs. Ascott knew 
nothing of what happened ; something that would heal her 
wounded heart, and make her forget Tom. 

And so it did. Women and mothers well know how en- 
grossing is the care of an infant; how each minute of the 
day is filled up with something to be done or thought of ; 
so that “fretting” about extraneous things becomes quite 
impossible. How gradually the fresh life growing up and 
expanding puts the worn-out or blighted life into the back- 


276 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


ground, and all the hopes and fancies cling around the 
small, beautiful present, the ever-developing, ever-marvel- 
ous mystery of a young child’s existence ! Why it should 
be so we can only guess ; but that it is so, many a wretched 
wife, many a widowed mother, many a broken-hearted, for- 
lorn aunt, has thankfully proved. 

Elizabeth proved it likewise. She did not exactly lose 
all memory of her trouble, but it seemed lighter ; it was 
swallowed up in this second passion of adopted mother- 
hood. And so she sank, quietly and at once, into the con- 
dition of a middle-aged woman, whose life’s story — and her 
sort of women have but one — was a mere episode, told and 
ended. 

For Esther had left and been married to Tom Cliffe with- 
in a few weeks of Mrs. Ascott’s funeral. Of course, the 
household knew every thing ; but nobody condoled with 
Elizabeth. There was a certain stand-oif-ishness about her 
which made them hold their tongues. They treated her 
with much respect, as her new position demanded. She 
took this, as she took every thing, with the grave quietness 
which was her fashion from her youth up; assumed her 
place as a confidential upper servant ; dressed well, but 
soberly, like a woman of forty, and was called “Mrs. Hand.” 

The only trace her “ disappointment” left upon her was 
a slightly bitter way of speaking about men in general, 
and a dislike to any chatter about love-affairs and matri- 
mony. Her own story she was never known to refer to in 
the most distant way except once. 

Miss Hilary — who, of course, had heard all, but delicate- 
ly kept silence — one night, when little Henry was not well, 
remained in the lodgings on Richmond Hill, and slept in 
the nursery, Elizabeth making up for herself a bed on the 
floor close beside baby and cradle. In the dead of night 
the two women, mistress and maid, by some chance, said a 
few things to one another which never might have been 
said in the daylight, and which, by tacit consent, were 
never afterward referred to by either, any more than if 
they had been spoken in a dream. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


27 7 


Elizabeth told briefly, though not without emotion, all 
that had happened between herself and Tom, and how he 
was married to Esther Martin. And then both women 
went back, in a moralizing way, to the days when they 
had both been “ young” at Stowbury, and how different 
life was from what they then thought and looked forward 
to — Miss Hilary and her “ bower-maiden.” 

“ Yes,” answered the former, with a sigh, “ things are, in- 
deed, not as people fancy when they are girls. We dream, 
and dream, and think we see very far into the future, 
which nobody sees but God. I often wonder how my life 
will end.” 

Elizabeth said, after a pause, “ I always felt sure you 
would be married, Miss Hilary. There was one person — 
is he alive still ? Is he ever coming home ?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“ I am sure he was very fond of you. And he looked 
like a good man.” 

“ He was the best man I ever knew.” 

This was all Miss Hilary said, and she said it softly and 
mournfully. She might never have said it at all ; but it 
dropped from her unawares in the deep feeling of the mo- 
ment, when her heart was tender over Elizabeth’s own sad, 
simply-told story. Also because of a sudden and great 
darkness which had come over her own. 

Literally, she did not now know whether Robert Lyon 
were alive or dead. Two months ago his letters had sud- 
denly ceased, without any explanation, his last being ex- 
actly the same as the others — as frank, as warmly affec- 
tionate, as cheerful and brave. 

One solution to this was his possible coming home. 
But she did not, after careful reasoning on the subject, be- 
lieve that likely. She knew exactly his business relations 
with his employers ; that there was a fixed time for his re- 
turn to England, which nothing except the very strongest 
necessity could alter. Even in the chance of his health 
breaking, so as to incapacitate him for work, he should, he 
always said, have to go to the hills rather than take the 


278 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


voyage home prematurely. And, in that case, he certain* 
ly would have informed his friends of his movements. 
There was nothing erratic, or careless, or eccentric about 
Robert Lyon ; he was a practical, business-like Scotchman 
— far too cautious and too regular in all his habits to be 
guilty of those accidental negligences by which wanderers 
abroad sometimes cause such cruel anxieties to friends at 
home. 

For the same reason, the other terrible possibility — his 
death — was not likely to have happened without their 
hearing of it. Hilary felt sure, with the strong confidence 
of love, that he would have taken every means to leave 
her some last word — some farewell token — which would 
reach her after he was gone, and comfort her with the as- 
surance of what, living, he had never plainly told. Some- 
times, when a wild terror of his death seized her, this set- 
tled conviction drove it back again. He must be living, 
or she would have heard. 

There was another interpretation of the silence, which 
many would have considered the most probable of all — he 
might be married. Not deliberately, but suddenly ; drawn 
into it by some of those impelling trains of circumstance 
which are the cause of so many marriages, especially with 
men ; or impelled by one of those violent passions which 
occasionally seize on an exceedingly good man, fascinating 
him against his conscience, reason, and will, until he wakes 
up to find himself fettered and ruined for life. Such things 
do happen, strangely, pitifully often. The like might have 
happened to Robert Lyon. 

Hilary did not actually believe it, but still her common 
sense told her that it was possible. She was not an inex- 
perienced girl now ; she looked on the world with the eyes 
of a woman of thirty ; and though, thank Heaven ! the ro- 
mance had never gone out of her — the faith, and trust, and 
tender love — still it had sobered down a little. She knew 
it was quite within the bounds of possibility that a young 
man, separated from her for seven years, thrown into all 
kinds of circumstances and among all sorts of people, 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


279 


should have changed very much in himself, and, conse- 
quently, toward her; that, without absolute faithlessness, 
he might suddenly have seen some other woman he liked 
better, and have married at once. Or if he came back ur r 
married — she had taught herself to look this probability 
also steadily in the face — he might find the reality of her, 
Hilary Leaf, different from his remembrance of her; and 
so, without actual falseness to the old true love, might not 
love her any more. 

These fears made her resolutely oppose Johanna’s wish 
to write to the house of business at Liverpool, and ask 
what had become of Mr. Lyon. It seemed like seeking aft- 
er him, trying to hold him by the slender chain which he 
had never attempted to make any stronger, and which, al- 
ready, he might have broken, or desired to break. 

She could not do it. Something forbade her ; that some- 
thing in the inmost depths of a woman’s nature which 
makes her feel her own value, and exact that she shall be 
sought; that, if her love be worth having, it is worth seek- 
ing ; that, however dear a man may be to her, she refuses 
to drop into his mouth like an overripe peach from a gar- 
den wall. In her sharpest agony of anxiety concerning 
him, Hilary felt that she could not, on her part, take any 
step that seemed to compel love, or even friendship, from 
Robert Lyon. It was not pride — she could hardly be 
called a proud woman — it was an innate sense of the dig- 
nity of that love which, as a free gift, is precious as “ much 
fine gold,” yet becomes the merest dross — utterly and in- 
sultingly poor — when paid as a debt of honor, or offered as 
a benevolent largess. 

And so, though oftentimes her heart felt breaking, Hila- 
ry labored on — sat the long day patiently at her desk, in- 
terested herself in the young people over whom she ruled, 
became Miss Balquidder’s right hand in all sorts of schemes 
which that good woman was forever carrying out for the 
benefit of her fellow-creatures, and, at leisure times, occu- 
pied herself with Johanna, or with Elizabeth and the. baby, 
trying to think it was a very beautiful and happy world, 


280 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


with love still in it, and a God of love ruling over it— 
only, only— 

Women are very humble in their crudest pride. Many 
a day she felt as if she could have crawled a hundred 
miles in the dust, like some Catholic pilgrim, just to get 
one sight of Robert Lyon. 

Autumn came — lovely, and lingering late. It was No- 
vember, and yet the air felt mild as May, and the sunshine 
had that peculiar genial brightness which autumnal sun- 
shine alone possesses ; even as, perhaps, late happiness has 
in it a holy calm and sweetness which no youthful ecstasy 
can ever boast. 

The day happened to be Hilary’s birthday. She had 
taken a holiday, which she, Johanna, Elizabeth, and the 
baby had spent in Richmond Park, watching the rabbits 
darting about under the brown fern, and the deer grazing 
contentedly hard by. They had sat a long time under one 
of the oak -trees with which the park abounds, listening 
for the sudden drop, drop of an occasional acorn among 
the fallen leaves, or making merry with the child, as a 
healthy, innocent, playful child always can make good 
women merry. 

Still Master Henry was not a remarkable specimen of 
infanthood, and had never occupied more than his proper 
nepotal corner in Hilary’s heart. She left him chiefly to 
Elizabeth, and to his aunt Johanna, in whom the grand- 
motherly character had blossomed out in full perfection. 
And when these two became engrossed in his infant maj- 
esty, Hilary sat a little apart, unconsciously folding her 
hands and fixing her eyes on vacancy, becoming fearfully 
alive to the sharp truth that, of all griefs, a strong love un- 
returned or unfulfilled is the grief which most blights a 
woman’s life — say, rather, any human life ; but it is worst 
to a woman, because she must necessarily endure passive- 
ly. So enduring, it is very difficult to recognize the good 
hand of God therein. Why should He ordain longings, 
neither selfish nor unholy, which yet are never granted ; 
tenderness which expends itself in vain ; sacrifices which 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


281 


are wholly unneeded ; and sufferings which seem quite 
thrown away ? That is, if we dared allege of any thing in 
the moral or in the material world, where so much loveli- 
ness, so much love, appear continually wasted, that it is 
really “thrown away.” We never know through what 
divine mysteries of compensation the Great Father of the 
universe may be carrying out His sublime plan ; and those 
three words, “ God is love,” ought to contain, to every 
doubting soul, the solution of all things. 

As Hilary rose from under the tree there was a shadow 
on her sweet face, a listless weariness in her movements, 
which caught Johanna’s attention. Johanna had been very 
good to her child. When, do what she would, Hilary could 
not keep down fits of occasional dullness or impatience, it 
was touching to see how this woman of over sixty years 
slipped from her due pedestal of honor and dignity, to be 
patient with her younger sister’s unspoken bitterness and 
incommunicable care. 

She now, seeing how restless Hilary was, rose when she 
rose, put her arm in hers, and accompanied her, speaking 
or silent, with quick steps or slow, as she chose, across the 
beautiful park, than which, perhaps, all England can not 
furnish a scene more thoroughly sylvan, thoroughly En- 
glish. They rested on that high ground near the gate of 
Pembroke Lodge, where the valley of the Thames lies 
spread out like a map, stretching miles and miles away in 
luxuriant greenery. 

“ How beautiful ! I wonder what a foreigner would think 
of this view? Or any one who had been long abroad? 
How inexpressibly sweet and homelike it would seem to 
him !” 

Hilary turned sharply away, and Johanna saw at once 
what her words had implied. She felt so sorry, so vexed 
with herself ; but it was best to leave it alone. So they 
made their way homeward, speaking of something else; 
and then that happened which Johanna had been almost 
daily expecting would happen, though she dared not com- 
municate her hopes to Hilary, lest they should prove falla- 
cious. 


282 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


The two figures, both in deep mourning, might have at- 
tracted any one’s attention ; they caught that of a gentle- 
man who was walking quickly, and looking about him as 
if in search of something. He passed them at a little dis- 
tance, then repassed, then turned, holding out both his 
hands. 

“ Miss Leaf ; I was sure it was you.” 

Only the voice; every thing else about him was so 
changed that Hilary herself would certainly have passed 
him in the street, that brown, foreign-looking, middle-aged 
man, nor recognized him as Robert Lyon. But for all that 
it was himself ; it was Robert Lyon. 

Nobody screamed, nobody fainted. People seldom do 
that in real life, even when a friend turns up suddenly 
from the other end of the world. They only hold out a 
warm hand, and look silently in one another’s faces, and try 
to believe that all is real, as these did. 

Robert Lyon shook hands with both ladies, one after the 
other, Hilary last, then placed himself between them. 

“ Miss Leaf, will you take my arm ?” 

The tone, the manner, were so exactly like himself, that 
in a moment all these intervening years seemed crushed 
into an atom of time. Hilary felt certain, morally and ab- 
solutely certain, that, in spite of all outward change, he 
was the same Robert Lyon who had bade them all good- 
by that Sunday night in the parlor at Stowbury. The 
same, even in his love for herself, though he had simply 
drawn her little hand under his arm, and never spoken a 
single word. 

Hilary Leaf, down, secretly, on your heart’s lowest knees, 
and thank God ! Repent of all your bitternesses, doubts, 
and pains; be joyful, be joyful ! But, oh, remember to be 
so humble withal. 

She was. As she walked silently along by Robert Lyon’s 
side she pulled down her veil to hide the sweetest, most 
contrite, most childlike tears. What did she deserve, 
more than her neighbors, that she should be so very, very 
happy ? And when, a good distance across the park, she 


MISTHESS AND MAID. 


283 


saw the dark, solitary figure of Elizabeth carrying baby, 
she quietly guided her companions into a different path, 
so as to avoid meeting, lest the sight of her happiness 
might in any way hurt poor Elizabeth. 

“ I only landed last night at Southampton,” Mr. Lyon ex- 
plained to Miss Leaf, after the fashion people have, at such 
meetings, of falling upon the most practical and uninter- 
esting details. “ I came by the Overland Mail. It was a 
sudden journey. I had scarcely more than a few hours’ 
notice. The cause of it was some very unpleasant defal- 
cations in our firm.” 

Hilary might have smiled under any other circumstan- 
ces ; maybe she did smile, and tease him many a time aft- 
erward, because the first thing he could find to talk about, 
after seven years’ absence, was “ defalcations in our firm.” 
But now she listened gravely, and by-and-by took her part 
in the unimportant conversation which always occurs after 
a meeting such as this. 

“Were you going home, Miss Leaf? They told me at 
your house you were expected to dinner. May I come 
with you ? for I have only a few hours to stay. To-night 
I must go on to Liverpool.” 

“But we shall hope soon to see you again?” 

“ I hope so. And I trust, Miss Leaf, that I do not intrude 
to-day ?” 

He said this with his Scotch shyness, or pride, or what- 
ever it was; so like his old self, that it made somebody 
smile ! But somebody loved it. Somebody lifted up to 
his face eyes of silent welcome ; sweet, soft brown eyes, 
where never, since he knew them, had he seen one cloud 
of anger darken, one shadow of unkindness rise. 

“ This is something to come home to,” he said in a low 
voice, and not over lucidly. Ay, it was. 

“ I am by no means disinterested in the matter of dinner, 
Miss Leaf, for I have no doubt of finding good English 
roast beef and plum-pudding on your sister’s birthday. 
Happy returns of the day, Miss Hilary.” 

She was so touched by his remembering this, that, to 


284 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


hide it, she put on a spice of her old mischievousness, and 
asked him if he was aware how old she was. 

“Yes: you are thirty; I have known you for fifteen 
years.” 

“It is a long time,” said Johanna, thoughtfully. 

Johanna would not have been human had she not been 
a little thoughtful and silent on the way home, and had 
she not many times, out of the corners of her eyes, sharply 
investigated Mr. Robert Lyon. 

He w r as much altered ; there was no doubt of that. 
Seven years of Indian life would change any body — take 
the youthfulness out of any body. It -was so with Robert 
Lyon. When, coming into the parlor, he removed his hat, 
many a white thread was visible in his hair, and, besides 
the spare, dried-up look which is always noticeable in peo- 
ple who have lived long in hot climates, there was an “ old” 
expression in his face, indicating many a worldly battle 
fought and won, but not without leaving scars behind. 

Even Hilary, as she sat opposite to him at table, could 
not but feel that he was no longer a young man either in 
appearance or reality. 

We ourselves grow' old, or older, without knowing it; 
but when we suddenly come upon the same fact in another, 
it startles us. Hilary had scarcely recognized how far she 
herself had left her girlish days behind till she saw Robert 
Lyon. 

“You think me very much changed?” said he, guessing 
by his curiously swift intuition of old what she was think- 
ing of. 

“ Yes, a good deal changed,” she answered, truthfully, 
at which he was silent. 

He could not read — perhaps no man’s heart could — all 
the emotion that swelled in hers as she looked at him, the 
love of her youth, no longer young. How the ghostly like- 
ness of the former face gleamed out under the hard, worn 
lines of the face that now was touching her with inelfable 
tenderness. Also, with solemn content came a sense of 
the entire indestructibleness of that love which through 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


285 


all decay or alteration traces the ideal image still, clings 
to it, and cherishes it with a tenacity that laughs to scorn 
the grim dread of “ growing old.” 

In his premature and not specially comely middle age, 
in his gray hairs, in the painful, anxious, half-melancholy 
expression which occasionally flitted across his features, as 
if life had gone hard with him, Robert Lyon was a thousand 
times dearer to her than when the world was all before 
them both in the early days at Stowbury. 

There is a great deal of a sentimental nonsense talked 
about people having been “young together.” Not neces- 
sarily is that a bond. Many a tie formed in youth dwindles 
away and breaks off naturally in maturer years. Charac- 
ters alter, circumstances divide. No one will dare to allege 
that there may not be loves and friendships formed in mid- 
dle life as dear, as close, as firm as any of those of youth ; 
perhaps, with some temperaments, infinitely more so. But 
when the two go together, when the calm election of ma- 
turity confirms the early instinct, and the lives have run 
parallel, as it were, for many years, there can be no bond 
like that of those who say, as these two did, “We were 
young together.” 

He said so when, after dinner, he came and stood by the 
window where Hilary was sitting sewing. Johanna had 
just gone out of the room, whether intentionally or not 
this history can not avouch. Let us give her the benefit 
of the doubt; she was a generous woman. 

During the three hours that Mr. Lyon had been with 
her Hilary’s first agitation had subsided. That exceeding 
sense of rest which she had always felt beside him — the 
sure index of people who, besides loving, are meant to 
guide, and help, and bless one another — returned as strong 
as ever. That deep affection which should underlie all 
love revived and clung to him with a childlike confidence, 
strengthening at every word he said, every familiar look 
and way. 

He was by no means so composed as she was, especially 
now when, coming up to her side and watching her hands 


286 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


moving for a minute or so, lie asked her to tell him, a little 
more explicitly, of what had happened to her since they 
parted. 

“ Things are rather different from what I thought and 
he glanced with a troubled air round the neat but very 
humbly furnished parlor. u And about the shop ?” 

“Johanna told you.” 

“Yes; but her letters have been so few, so short — not 
that I could expect more. Still — now, if you will trust me, 
tell me all.” 

Hilary turned to him, her friend for fifteen years. He 
was that if he was nothing more. And he had been very 
true ; he deserved to be trusted. She told him, in brief, 
the history of the last year or two, and then added, 

“But, after all, it is hardly worth the telling, because, you 
see, we are very comfortable now. Poor Ascott, we sup- 
pose, must be in Australia. I earn enough to keep Johan- 
na and myself, and Miss Balquidder is a good friend to us. 
We have repaid her, and owe nobody any thing. Still we 
have suffered a great deal. Two years ago — oh ! it was a 
dreadful time.” 

She was hardly aware of it, but her candid tell-tale face 
betrayed more even than her words. It cut Robert Lyon 
to the heart. 

“ You suffered, and I never knew it.” 

“ I never meant you to know.” 

“ Why not ?” He walked the room in great excitement. 
“ I ought to have been told ; it was cruel not to tell me. 
Suppose you had sunk under it ; suppose you had died, or 
been driven to do what many a woman does for the sake 
of mere bread and a home — what your poor sister did — 
married. But I beg your pardon.” 

For Hilary had started up with her face all aglow. 

“Ho,” she cried; “no poverty would have sunk me as 
low as that. I might have starved, but I should never 
have married.” 

Robert Lyon looked at her, evidently uncomprehending, 
then said humbly, though rather formally, 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


287 


“ I beg your pardon once more. I had no right to allude 
to any thing of the kind.” 

Hilary replied not. It seemed as if now, close together, 
they were farther apart than when the Indian Seas rolled 
between them. 

Mr. Lyon’s brown cheek turned paler and paler ; he press- 
ed his lips hard together ; they moved once or twice, but 
still he did not utter a word. At last, with a sort of des- 
perate courage, and in a tone that Hilary had never heard 
from him in her life before, he said, 

“ Yes, I believe I have a right — the right that every man 
has when his whole happiness depends upon it, to ask you 
one question. You know every thing concerning me ; you 
always have known; I meant that you should — I have 
taken the utmost care that you should. There is not a 
bit of my life that has not been as open to you as if— as 
if — But I know nothing whatever concerning you.” 

“What do you wish to know?” she faltered. 

“ Seven years is a long time. Are you free ? I mean, 
are you engaged to be married ?” 

“No.” 

“ Thank God !” 

He dropped his head down between his hands and did 
not speak for a long time. 

And then with difficulty — for it was always hard to him 
to speak out — he told her, at least he somehow made her 
understand, how he had loved her. No light fancy of sen- 
timental youth, captivated by every fresh face it sees, put- 
ting upon each one the coloring of its own imagination, 
and adorning not what is, but what itself creates : no sud- 
den, selfish, sensuous passion, caring only to attain its ob- 
ject, irrespective of reason, right, or conscience ; but the 
strong, deep love of a just man, deliberately choosing one 
woman as the best woman out of all the world, and setting 
himself resolutely to win her. Battling for her sake with 
all hard fortune ; keeping, for her sake, his heart pure from 
all the temptations of the world ; never losing sight of her ; 
watching over her so far as he could, consistently with the 


288 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


sense of honor (or masculine pride — which was it ? but Hi. 
lary forgave it, anyhow) which made him resolutely compel 
himself to silence ; holding her perfectly free, while he held 
himself bound. Bound by a faithfulness perfect as that of 
the knights of old — asking nothing, and yet giving all. 

Such was his love — this brave, plain-spoken, single-heart- 
ed Scotsman. Would that there were more such men and 
more such love in the world ! 

Few women could have resisted it, certainly not Hilary, 
especially with a little secret of her own lying perdu at the 
bottom of her heart ; that “ sleeping angel” whence half 
her strength and courage had come ; the noble, faithful, 
generous love of a good woman for a good man. But this 
secret Robert Lyon had evidently never guessed, or deemed 
himself wholly unworthy of such a possession. 

He took her hand at last, and held it firmly. 

“ And now that you know all, do you think in time — I’ll 
not hurry you — but in time, do you think I could make you 
love me ?” 

She looked up in his face with her honest eyes. Smiling 
as they were, there was pathos in them ; the sadness left 
by those long years of hidden suffering, now forever ended. 

“ I have loved you all my life,” said Hilary. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

Let us linger a little over this chapter of happy love, so 
sweet, so rare a thing. Ay, most rare ; though hundreds 
continually meet, love, or fancy they do, engage themselves, 
and marry ; and hundreds more go through the same pro- 
ceeding, with the slight difference of the love omitted— 
Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out. But the real 
love, steady and true ; tried in the balance, and not found 
wanting ; tested by time, silence, separation ; by good and 
ill fortune ; by the natural and inevitable change which 
years make in every character— this is the rarest thing to 
be found on earth, and the most precious. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


289 


I do not say that all love is worthless which is not exact- 
ly this sort of love. There have been people who have 
succumbed instantly and permanently to some mysterious 
attraction, higher than all reasoning; the same which made 
Hilary “ take an interest” in Robert Lyon’s face at church, 
and made him, he afterward confessed, the very first time 
he gave Ascott a lesson in the parlor at Stowbury, say to 
himself, “ If I did marry, I think I should like such a wife 
as that brown-eyed bit lassie.” And there have been other 
people, who, choosing their partners from accidental cir- 
cumstances, or from mean worldly motives, have found 
Providence kinder to them than they deserved, and settled 
down into happy, affectionate husbands and wives. 

But none of these loves can possibly have the sweetness, 
the completeness of such a love as that between Hilary 
Leaf and Robert Lyon. 

There was nothing very romantic about it. From the 
moment when Johanna entered the parlor, found them 
standing hand-in-hand at the fireside, and Hilary came for- 
ward and kissed her, and after a slight hesitation Robert 
did the same, the affair proceeded in most mill-pond 
fashion : 

“ Unruffled by those cataracts and breaks, 

That humor interposed too often makes.” 

There were no lovers’ quarrels ; Robert Lyon had chosen 
that best blessing next to a good woman, a sweet-tempered 
woman ; and there was no reason why they should quarrel 
more as lovers than they had done as friends. And, let it 
be said to the eternal honor of both, now, no more than in 
their friendship days, was there any of that hungry engross- 
ment of each other’s society, which is only another form of 
selfishness, and by which lovers so often make their own 
happy courting-time a season of never-to-be-forgotten bit- 
terness to every body connected with them. 

Johanna suffered a little ; all people do when the new 
rights clash with the old ones ; but she rarely betrayed it. 
She was exceedingly good : she saw her child happy, and 
she loved Robert Lyon dearly. He was very mindful of 


290 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


her, very tender ; and as Hilary still persisted in doing her 
daily duty in the shop, he spent more of his time with the 
elder sister than he did with the younger, and sometimes 
declared solemnly that if Hilary did not treat him well he 
intended to make an offer to Johanna ! 

Oh, the innumerable little jokes of those happy days ! 
Oh, the long, quiet walks by the river-side, through the 
park, across Ham Common — any where — it did not matter 
— the whole world looked lovely, even on the dullest win- 
ter day ! Oh, the endless talks ; the renewed mingling of 
two lives, which, though divided, had never been really 
apart, for neither had any thing to conceal — neither had 
ever loved any but the other. 

Robert Lyon was, as I have said, a good deal changed, 
outwardly and inwardly. He had mixed much in society, 
taken an excellent position therein, and this had given him 
not only a more polished manner, but an air of decision and 
command, as of one used to be obeyed. There could not 
be the slightest doubt, as Johanna once laughingly told 
him, that he would always be “master in his own house.” 

But he was very gentle with his “ little woman,” as he 
called her. He would sit for hours at the “ ingle-neuk” — 
how he did luxuriate in the English fires ! — with Hilary on 
a footstool beside him, her arm resting on his knee, or her 
hand fast clasped in his. And sometimes, when Johanna 
went out of the room, he would stoop and gather her close 
to his heart. But I shall tell no tales ; the world has no 
business with these sort of things. 

Hilary was very shy of parading her happiness ; she 
disliked any demonstrations thereof, even before Johanna. 
And when Miss Balquidder, who had, of course, been told 
of the engagement, came down one day expressly to see 
her “fortunate fellow-countryman,” this Machiavelian little 
woman actually persuaded her lover to have an important 
engagement in London ! She could not bear him to be 
“ looked at.” 

“ Ah ! well, you must leave me, and I will miss you terri- 
bly, my dear,” said the old Scotchwoman. “ But it’s an ill 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


291 


wind that blows nobody good, and I have another young 
lady quite ready to step into your shoes. When shall you 
be married ?” 

“ I don’t know — hush ! we’ll talk another time,” said Hi- 
lary, glancing at Johanna. 

Miss Balquidder took the hint and was silent. 

That important question was indeed beginning to weigh 
heavily on Hilary’s mind. She was fully aware of what 
Mr. Lyon wished, and, indeed, expected ; that when, the 
business of the firm being settled, in six months hence he 
returned to India, he should not return alone. When he 
said this, she had never dared to answer, hardly even to 
think. She let the peaceful present float on, day by day, 
without recognizing such a thing as the future. 

But this could not be always. It came to an end one 
January afternoon, when he had returned from a second 
absence in Liverpool. They were walking up Richmond 
Hill. The sun had set frostily and red over the silver 
curve of the Thames, and Venus, large and bright, was 
shining like a great eye in the western sky. Hilary long 
remembered exactly how every thing looked, even to the 
very tree they stood under when Robert Lyon asked her 
to fix definitely the day that she would marry him. 

“Would she consent — there seemed no special reason to 
the contrary — that it should be immediately ? Or would 
she like to remain with Johanna as she was, till just before 
they sailed? He wished to be as good as possible to Jo- 
hanna; still — ” 

And something in his manner impressed Hilary more than 
ever before with the conviction of all she was to him ; like- 
wise all he was to her — more, much more than even a few 
short weeks since. Then, intense as it was, the love had a 
dream-like unreality ; now it was close, homelike, familiar. 
Instinctively she clung to his arm ; she had become so used 
to being Robert’s darling now. She shivered as she thought 
of the wide seas rolling between them ; of the time when 
she should look for him at the daily meal and daily fireside, 
and find him no more. 


292 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“Robert, I want to talk to you about Johanna.” 

“ I guess what it is,” said he, smiling ; “ you would like 
her to go out to India with us. Certainly, if she chooses. 
I hope you did not suppose I should object?” 

“ No ; but it is not that. She would not live six months 
in a hot climate : the doctor tells me so.” 

“You consulted him?” 

“Yes, confidentially, without her knowing it. But I 
thought it right. I wanted to make quite sure before — 
before — Oh, Robert — ” 

The grief of her tone caused him to suspect what was 
coming. He started. 

“ You don’t mean that ? Oh no, you can not ! My lit- 
tle woman — my own little woman — she could not be so 
unkind.” 

Hilary turned sick at heart. The dim landscape, the 
bright sky, seemed to mingle and dance before her, and 
Venus to stare at her with a piercing, threatening, baleful 
lustre. 

“ Robert, let me sit down on the bench, and sit you be- 
side me. It is too dark for people to notice us, and we 
shall not be very cold.” 

“No, my darling;” and he slipped his plaid round her 
shoulders, and his arm with it. 

She looked up pitifully. “ Don’t be vexed with me, Rob- 
ert, dear ; I have thought it all over ; weighed it on every 
side ; nights and nights I have been awake pondering what 
was right to do, and it always comes to the same thing.” 

“What?” 

“ It’s the old story,” she answered, with a feeble smile. 
“ ‘ I canna leave my minnie.’ There is nobody in the world 
to take care of Johanna but me, not even Elizabeth, who 
is engrossed in little Henry. If I left her I am sure it 
would kill her. And she can not come with me. Dear !” 
(the only fond name she ever called him) “ for these three 
years — you say it need only be three years — you will have 
to go back to India alone !” 

Robert Lyon was a very good man, but he was only a 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


293 


man, not an angel ; and though he made comparatively lit- 
tle show of it, he was a man very deeply in love. With 
that jealous tenacity over his treasure, hardly blamable, 
since the love is worth little which does not wish to have 
its object “all to itself,” he had, I am afraid, contemplated, 
not without pleasure, the carrying oif of Hilary to his In- 
dian home ; and it had cost him something to propose that 
Johanna should go too. He was very fond of Johanna; 
still — 

If I tell what followed, will it forever lower Robert Lyon 
in the estimation of all readers? He said, coldly, “As you 
please, Hilary rose up, and never spoke another word till 
they reached home. 

It was the first dull tea-table they had ever known ; the 
first time Hilary had ever looked at that dear face, and seen 
an expression there which made her look away again. He 
did not sulk ; he was too gentlemanly for that ; he even ex- 
erted himself to make the meal pass pleasantly as usual ; 
but he was evidently deeply wounded — nay, more, dis- 
pleased. The strong, stern man’s nature within him had 
rebelled ; the sweetness had gone out of his face, and some- 
thing had come into it which the very best of men have 
sometimes: alas for the woman who can not understand 
and put up with it ! 

I am not going to preach the doctrine of tyrants and 
slaves ; but when two walk together they must be agreed, 
or if by any chance they are not agreed, one must yield. 
It may not always be the weaker, or in weakness may lie 
the chiefest strength ; but it must be one or other of the 
two who has to be the first to give way ; and, save in very 
exceptional cases, it is, and it ought to be, the woman. 
God’s law and nature’s, which is also God’s, ordains this ; 
instinct teaches it ; Christianity enforces it. 

Will it inflict a death-blow upon any admiration she may 
have excited, this brave little Hilary, who fought through 
the world by herself ; who did not shrink from traversing 
London streets alone at seemly and unseemly hours ; from 
going into sponging-houses and debtors’ prisons; from 


294 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


earning her own livelihood, even in a shop — if I confess 
that Robert Lyon, being angry with her, justly or unjust- 
ly, and she, looking upon him as her future husband, her 
“ lord and master” if you will, whom she would one day 
promise, and intended literally to “ obey” — she thought it 
her duty — not only her pleasure, but her duty — to be the 
first to make reconciliation between them ? ay, and at ev- 
ery sacrifice except that of principle. 

And I am afraid, in spite of all that “ strong-minded” 
women may preach to the contrary, that all good women 
will have to do this to all men who stand in any close re- 
lation toward them, whether fathers, husbands, brothers, or 
lovers, if they wish to preserve peace, and love, and holy 
domestic influence; and that so it must be to the end of 
time. 

Miss Leaf might have discovered that something was 
amiss, but she was too wise to take any notice, and being 
more than usually feeble that day, immediately after tea 
she went to lie down. When Hilary followed her, ar- 
ranged her pillows, and covered her up, Johanna drew her 
child’s face close to her and whispered, 

“ That will do, love. Don’t stay with me. I would not 
keep you from Robert on any account.” 

Hilary all but broke down ; and yet the words made her 
stronger, firmer ; set more clearly before her the solemn 
duty which young folks in love are so apt to forget, that 
there can be no blessing on the new tie if for any thing 
short of inevitable necessity they let go one link of the 
old. 

Yet Robert — It was such a new and dreadful feeling 
to be stand., g outside the door and shrink from going in 
to him ; to see him rise up formally, saying, “ Perhaps he 
had better leave,” and have to answer with equal formal- 
ity, “Not unless you are obliged;” and for him then, with 
a shallow pretense of being at ease, to take up a book and 
offer to read aloud to her while she worked — he who 
used always to set his face strongly against all sewing 
of evenings, because it deprived him temporarily of the 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


295 


sweet eyes and the little soft hand — oh, it was hard — 
hard ! 

Nevertheless, she sat still and tried to listen; but the 
words went in at one ear and out at the other — she re- 
tained nothing. By-and-by her throat began to swell, and 
she could not see her needle and thread. Yet still he went 
on reading. It was only when, by some blessed chance, 
turning to reach a paper-cutter, he caught sight of her, that 
he closed the book and looked discomposed — not softened, 
only discomposed. 

Who shall be first to speak? Who shall catch the pass- 
ing angel’s wing ? One minute, and it may have passed 
over. 

I am not apologizing for Hilary the least in the world. 
I do not know even if she considered whether it was her 
place or Robert’s to make the first advance. Indeed, I fear 
she did not consider it at all, but just acted upon impulse, 
because it was so cruel, so heart-breaking, to be at variance 
with him. But if she had considered it I doubt not she 
would have done from duty exactly what she did by in- 
stinct — crept up to him as he sat at the fireside, and laid 
her little hand on his. 

“ Robert, what makes you so angry with me still ?” 

“Not angry; I have no right to be.” 

“ Yes, you would have if I had really done wrong. 
Have I?” 

“ You must judge for yourself. For me — I thought you 
loved me better than I find you do, and I made a mistake ; 
that is all.” 

Ay, he had made a mistake, but it was not that one. It 
was the other mistake that men continually make about 
women ; they can not understand that love is not worth 
having, that it is not love at all, but merely a selfish carry- 
ing out of selfish desires, if it blinds us to any other duty, 
or blunts in us any other sacred tenderness. They can not 
see how she who is false in one relation may be false in an- 
other ; and that, true as human nature’s truth, ay, and often 
fulfilling itself, is Brabantio’s ominous warning to Othello— 


296 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


‘'Look to her, Moor! have a good eye to see; 

She has deceived her father, and may thee.” 

Perhaps, as soon as he had said the bitter word, Mr. Ly- 
on was sorry ; anyhow, the soft answer which followed it 
thrilled through every nerve of the strong-willed man — a 
man not easily made angry, but when he was, very hard to 
move. 

“ Robert, will you listen to me for two minutes ?” 

44 For as long as you like, only you must not expect me 
to agree with you. You can not suppose I shall say it is 
right for you to forsake me.” 

44 1 forsake you ? oh, Robert !” 

Words are not always the wisest arguments. His 44 lit- 
tle woman” crept closer, and laid her head on his breast ; 
he clasped her convulsively. 

44 Oh, Hilary, how could you wound me so ?” 

And, in lieu of the discussion, a long silence brooded over 
the fireside — the silence of exceeding love. 

44 Now, Robert, may I talk to you ?” 

44 Yes. Preach away, my little conscience !” 

44 It shall not be preaching, and it is not altogether for 
conscience,” said she, smiling. 44 You would not like me 
to tell you I did not love Johanna?” 

44 Certainly not. I love her very much myself, only I pre- 
fer you, as is natural. Apparently you do not prefer me, 
which may be also natural.” 

“Robert !” 

There are times when a laugh is better than a reproach ; 
and something else, which need not be more particularly 
explained, is safer than either. It is possible Hilary tried 
the experiment, and then resumed her 44 say.” 

“ Now, Robert, put yourself in my place, and try to think 
for me. I have been Johanna’s child for thirty years; she 
is entirely dependent upon me. Her health is feeble; every 
year of her life is at least doubtful. If she lost me I think 
she would never live out the next three years. You would 
not like that ?” 

“No” 


MISTKESS AND MAID. 


297 


u In nil divided duties like this, somebody must suffer ; 
the question is, which can suffer best. She is old and frail, 
we are young ; she is alone, we are two ; she never had any 
happiness in her life except perhaps me ; and we — oh, how 
happy we are ! I think, Robert, it would be better for us 
to suffer than poor Johanna.” 

“You little Jesuit,” he said; but the higher nature of 
the man was roused; he was no longer angry. 

“It is only for a short time, remember — only three years.” 

“ And how can I do without you for three years ?” 

“Yes, Robert, you can.” And she put her arms round 
his neck, and looked at him eye to eye. “You know I 
am your very own, a piece of yourself, as it were; that 
when I let you go it is like tearing myself from myself; 
yet I can bear it rather than do, or let you do, in the small- 
est degree, a thing which is not right.” 

Robert Lyon was not a man of many words ; but he had 
the rare faculty of seeing a case clearly, without reference 
to himself, and of putting it clearly also, when necessary. 

“ It seems to me, Hilary, that this is hardly a matter of 
abstract right or wrong, or a good deal might be argued 
on my side the subject. It is more a case of personal con- 
science. The two are not always identical, though they 
look so at first ; but they both come to the same result.” 

“ And that is — ” 

“ If my little woman thinks it right to act as she does, 
I also think it right to let her. And let this be the law 
of our married life, if we ever are married,” and he sighed, 
“ that when we differ each should respect the other’s con- 
science, and do right, in the truest sense, by allowing the 
other to do the same.” 

“ Oh, Robert ! how good you are.” 

“ So these two, an hour after, met J ohanna with cheerful 
faces, and she never knew how much both had sacrificed for 
her sake. Once only, when she was for a few minutes ab- 
sent from the parlor, did Robert Lyon renew the subject, 
to suggest a medium course. 

But Hilary resolutely refused. Not that she doubted 


298 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


him — she doubted herself. She knew quite well, by the 
pang that darted through her like a shaft of ice, as she felt 
his warm arm round her, and thought of the time when 
she would feel it no more, that, after she had been Robert 
Lyon’s happy wife for three months, to let him go to India 
without her would be simply and utterly impossible. 

Fast fled the months; they dwindled into weeks, and 
then into days. I shall not enlarge upon this time. Now, 
when the ends of the world are drawn together, and every 
family has one or more relatives abroad, a grief like Hi- 
lary’s has become so common that nearly every one can, 
in degree, understand it. How bitter such partings are, 
how much they take out of the brief span of mortal life, 
and, therefore, how far they are justifiable for any thing 
short of absolute necessity, Heaven knows. 

In this case it was an absolute necessity. Robert Ly- 
on’s position in “our firm,” with which he identified himself 
with the natural pride of a man who has diligently worked 
his way up to fortune, was such that he could not, with- 
out sacrificing his future prospects, and likewise what he 
felt to be a point of honor, refuse to go back to Bombay 
until such time as his senior partner’s son, the young fel- 
low whom he had “coached” in Hindostanee, and nursed 
through a fever years ago, could conveniently take his place 
abroad. 

“ Of course,” he said, explaining this to Hilary and her 
sister, “ accidental circumstances might occur to cause my 
return home before the three years were out, but the act 
must be none of mine ; I must do my duty.” 

“ Yes, you must,” answered Hilary, with a gleam light- 
ing up her eyes. She loved so in him this one great prin- 
ciple of his life — the back-bone of it, as it were — duty be- 
fore all things. 

Johanna asked no questions. Once she had inquired, 
with a tremulous, hardly concealed alarm, whether Robert 
wished to take Hilary back with him, and Hilary had kissed 
her, smilingly, saying, “ No, that was impossible.” After- 
ward the subject was never revived. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


299 


And so these two lovers, both stern in what they thought 
their duty, went on silently together to the last day of 
parting. 

It was almost as quiet a day as that never-to-be-forgotten 
Sunday at Stowbury. They went a long walk together, in 
the course of which Mr. Lyon forced her to agree to what 
hitherto she had steadfastly resisted, that she and Johanna 
should accept from him enough, in addition to their own 
fifty pounds a year, to enable them to live comfortably 
without her working any more. 

“ Are you ashamed of my working ?” she asked, with 
something between a tear and a smile. “Sometimes I 
used to be afraid you would think the less of me because 
circumstances made me an independent woman, earning 
my own bread. Do you ?” 

“ My darling ! no. I am proud of her. But she must 
never work any more. Johanna says right; it is a man’s 
place, and not a woman’s. I will not allow it.” 

When he spoke in that tone Hilary always submitted. 

He told her another thing while arranging with her all 
the business part of their concerns, and to reconcile her to 
this partial dependence upon him, which, he urged, was 
only forestalling his rights — that, before he first quitted 
England seven years ago, he had made his will, leaving 
her, if still unmarried, his sole heir and legatee — indeed, 
in exactly the position that she would have been had she 
been his wife. 

“ This will exists still, so that in any case you are safe. 
Ho farther poverty can ever befall my Hilary.” 

His — his own — Robert Lyon’s own. Her sense of this 
was so strong that it took away the sharpness of the part- 
ing ; made her feel, up to the very last minute, when she 
clung to him — was pressed close to him — heart to heart 
and lip to lip — for a space that seemed half a lifetime of 
mixed anguish and joy — that he was not really going; 
that, somehow or other, next day or next week he would 
be back again, as in his frequent reappearances, exactly as 
before. 


300 


MISTEESS AND MAID. 


When he was really gone — when, as she sat with her 
tearless eyes fixed on the closed door, Johanna softly touch- 
ed her, saying, “ My child !” then Hilary learned it all. 

The next twenty-four hours will hardly bear being writ- 
ten about. Most people know what it is to miss the face 
out of the house — the life out of the heart. To come and 
go, to eat and drink, to lie down and rise, and find all 
things the same, and gradually to recognize that it must 
be the same, indefinitely, perhaps always. To be met con- 
tinually by small trifles — a dropped glove, a book, a scrap 
of handwriting that yesterday would have been thrown 
into the fire, but to-day is picked up and kept as a relic ; 
and at times, bursting through the quietness which must 
be gained, or at least assumed, the cruel craving for one 
word more — one kiss more — for only one five minutes of 
the eternally ended yesterday ! 

All this hundreds have gone through ; so did Hilary. 
She said afterward it was good for her that she did; it 
would make her feel for others in a way she had never felt 
before. Also, because it taught her that such a heart- 
break can be borne and lived through when help is sought 
where only real help can be found ; and where, when rea- 
son fails, and those who, striving to do right irrespective 
of the consequences, cry out against their torments, and 
wonder w r hy they should be made so to suffer, child-like 
faith comes to their rescue. For, let us have all the phi- 
losophy at our fingers’ ends, what are we but children ? 
We know not what a day may bring forth. All wisdom 
resolves itself into the simple hymn which we learned 
when we were young : 

“Deep in unfathomable mines 
Of never-failing skill, 

He treasures up His vast designs, 

And works His sovereign will. 

“ Blind unbelief is sure to err, 

And scan His work in vain : 

God is His own interpreter, 

And He will make it plain.’' 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


301 


The night after Robert Lyon left, Hilary and Johanna 
were sitting together in their parlor. Hilary had been 
writing a long letter to Miss Balquidder, explaining that 
she would now give up, in favor of the other young lady, 
or any other of the many to whom it would be a blessing, 
her position in the shop ; but that she hoped still to help 
her— Miss Balquidder — in any way she could point out 
that would be useful to others. She wished, in her hum- 
ble way, as a sort of thank-offering from one who had 
passed through the waves and been landed safe ashore, to 
help those who were still struggling, as she herself had 
struggled once. She desired, as far as in her lay, to be 
Miss Balquidder’s “ right hand” till Mr. Lyon came home. 

This letter she read aloud to Johanna, whose failing eye- 
sight refused all candle-light occupation, and then came 
and sat beside her in silence. She felt terribly worn and 
weary, but she was very quiet now. 

“ We must go to bed early,” was all she said. 

“ Yes, my child.” 

And Johanna smoothed her hair in the old, fond way, 
making no attempt to console her, but only to love her — 
always the safest consolation. And Hilary was thankful 
that never, even in her sharpest agonies of grief, had she 
betrayed that secret which would have made her sister’s 
life miserable, have blotted out the thirty years of mother- 
ly love, and caused the other love to rise up like a cloud 
between her and it, never to be lifted until Johanna sank 
into the possibly not far-off grave. 

“No, no,” she thought to herself, as she looked on that 
frail old face, which even the secondary grief of this last 
week seemed to have made frailer and older. “No, it is 
better as it is ; I believe I did right. The end will show.” 

The end was nearer than she thought. So, sometimes 
— not often, lest self-sacrifice should become a less holy 
thing than it is — Providence accepts the will for the act, 
and makes the latter needless. 

There was a sudden knock at the hall door. 

“ It is the young people coming in to supper.” 


302 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“It’s not,” said Hilary, starting up : “ it’s not their knock. 
It is — ” 

She never finished the sentence, for she was sobbing in 
Robert Lyon’s arms. 

“What does it all mean?” cried the bewildered Johan* 
na, of whom, I must confess, for once nobody took the least 
notice. 

It meant that, by one of these strange accidents, as we 
call them, which in a moment alter the whole current of 
things, the senior partner had suddenly died, and his son, 
not being qualified to take his place in the Liverpool house, 
had to go out to India instead of Robert Lyon, who would 
now remain permanently, as the third senior partner, in 
England. 

This news had met him at Southampton. He had gone 
thence direct to Liverpool, arranged affairs so far as was 
possible, and returned, traveling without an hour’s inter- 
mission, to tell his own tidings, as was best — or as he 
thought it was. 

Perhaps at the core of his heart lurked the desire to 
come suddenly back, as, it is said, if the absent or the dead 
could come, they would find all things changed : the place 
filled up in home and hearth — no face of welcome — no 
heart leaping to heart in the ecstasy of reunion. 

“Well, if Robert Lyon had any misgivings — and being 
a man, and in love, perhaps he had — they were ended now. 

“ Is she glad to see me ?” was all he could find to say 
when, Johanna having considerately vanished, he might 
have talked as much as he pleased. 

Hilary’s only answer was a little, low laugh of inexpres- 
sible content. 

He lifted up between his hands the sweet face, neither 
so young nor so pretty as it had been, but oh ! so sweet, 
with the sweetness that long outlives beauty — a face that 
a man might look on all his lifetime and never tire of— so 
infinitely loving, so infinitely true ! And he knew it was 
his wife’s face, to shine upon him day hy day, and year by 
year, till it faded into old age — beautiful and beloved even 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


303 


then. All the strong nature of the man gave way ; he 
wept almost like a child in his “ little woman’s” arms. 

Let us leave them there, by that peaceful fireside — these 
two, who are to sit by one fireside as long as they live. 
Of their further fortune we know nothing — nor do they 
themselves — except the one fact, in itself joy enough for 
any mortal cup to hold, that it will be shared together. 
Two at the hearth, two abroad ; two to labor, two to re 
joice ; or, if so it must be, two to weep, and two to corn- 
fort one another; the man to be the head of the woman, 
and the woman the heart of the man. This is the ordina- 
tion of God ; this is the perfect life ; none the less perfect 
that so many fall short of it. 

So let us bid them good-by : Robert Lyon and Hilary 
Leaf, “ Good-by ; God be with ye !” for we shall see them 
no more. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

Elizabeth stood at the nursery window, pointing out 
to little Henry how the lilacs and laburnums were coming 
into flower in the square below, and speculating with him 
whether the tribes of sparrows which they had fed all win- 
ter from the mignonnette boxes on the window-sill would 
be building nests in the tall trees of Russell Square ; for 
she wished, with her great aversion to London, to make 
her nursling as far as possible a “ country” child. 

Master Henry Leaf Ascott was by no means little now. 
He would run about on his tottering fat legs, and he could 
say “ Mammy Lizzie,” also “ Pa-pa,” as had been carefully 
taught him by his conscientious nurse. At which papa 
had been at first excessively surprised, then gratified, and 
had at last taken kindly to the appellation as a matter of 
course. 

It inaugurated a new era in Peter Ascott’s life. At first 
twice a week, and then every day, he sent up for “ Master 
Ascott” to keep him company at dessert ; he then changed 
his dinner-hour from half past six to five, because Eliza- 


304 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


beth, with her stern sacrifice of every thing to the child’s 
good, had suggested to him, humbly but firmly, that late 
hours kept little Henry too long out of his bed. He gave 
up his bottle of port and his after-dinner sleep, and took 
to making water-lilies and caterpillars out of oranges, and 
boats out of walnut-shells, for his boy’s special edification. 
Sometimes when, at half past six, Elizabeth, punctual as 
clock-work, knocked at the dining-room door, she heard 
father and son laughing together in a most jovial manner, 
though the decanters were in their places and the wine- 
glasses untouched. 

And even after the child disappeared the butler declared 
that master usually took quietly to his newspaper, or rang 
for his tea, or perhaps dozed harmlessly in his chair till 
bedtime. 

I do not allege that Peter Ascott was miraculously 
changed ; people do not change, especially at his age ; ex- 
ternally he was still the same pompous, overbearing, coarse 
man, with whom, no doubt, his son would have a tolera- 
bly sore bargain in years to come. But still the child 
had touched a soft corner in his heart, the one soft corner 
which in his youth had yielded to the beauty of Miss Seli- 
na Leaf, and the old fellow was a better old fellow than 
he had once been. Probably, with care, he might be for 
the rest of his life at least manageable. 

Elizabeth hoped so, for his boy’s sake; and, little as she 
liked him, she tried to conquer her antipathy as much as 
she could. She always took care to treat him with ex- 
treme respect, and to bring up little Henry to do the 
same. And, as often happens, Mr. Ascott began gradually 
to comport himself in a manner deserving of respect. He 
ceased his oaths and his coarse language ; seldom flew into 
a passion ; and last, not least, the butler avouched that 
master hardly ever went to bed “ muzzy” now. Toward 
all his domestics, and especially to his son’s nurse, he be- 
haved himself more like a master and less like a tyrant, 
so that the establishment at Russell Square went on in a 
way more peaceful than had ever been known before. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


305 


There was no talk of his giving it a new mistress; he 
seemed to have had enough of matrimony. Of his late 
wife he never spoke ; whether he loved her or not, wheth- 
er he had regretted her or not, the love and regret were 
now alike ended. 

Poor Selina ! It was Elizabeth only, who, with a sacred 
sense of duty, occasionally talked to little Henry about 
“ mamma up there” — pointing to the blank bit of blue sky 
over the trees of Russell Square, and hoped in time to 
make him understand something about her, and how she 
had loved him, her “ baby.” This love — the only beauti- 
ful emotion her life had known, was the one fragment that 
remained of it after her death, the one remembrance she 
left to her child. 

Little Henry was not in the least like her, nor yet like 
his father. He took after some forgotten type, some past 
generation of either family, which reappeared in this as 
something new. To Elizabeth he was a perfect revelation 
of beauty and infantile fascination. He filled up every 
corner of her heart. She grew fat and flourishing, even 
cheerful ; so cheerful that she bore with equanimity the 
parting with her dear Miss Hilary, who went away in glo- 
ry and happiness as Mrs. Robert Lyon, to live in Liverpool, 
and Miss Leaf with her. Thus both Elizabeth’s youthful 
dreams ended in nothing, and it was more than probable 
that for the future, their lives and hers being so widely 
apart, she would see very little of her beloved mistresses 
any more. But they had done their work in her and for 
her, and it had borne fruit a hundred-fold, and would still. 

“ I know you will take care of this child — he is the hope 
of the family,” said Miss Leaf, when she was giving her last 
kiss to little Henry. “ I could not bear to leave him if I 
were not leaving him with you.” 

And Elizabeth had taken her charge proudly in her arms, 
knowing she was trusted, and inwardly vowing to be wor- 
thy of that trust. 

Another dream was likewise ended — so completely that 
she sometimes wondered if it was ever real ; whether she 


306 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


had ever been a happy girl, looking forward as girls do to 
wifehood and motherhood, or whether she had not been al- 
ways the staid middle-aged person she was now, whom no- 
body ever suspected of any such things. 

She had been once back to her old home, to settle her 
mother comfortably upon a weekly allowance, to ’prentice 
her little brother, to see one sister married, and the other 
sent off to Liverpool to be servant to Mrs. Lyon. While 
at Stowbury, she had heard by chance of Tom Cliffe’s pass- 
ing through the town as a Chartist lecturer, or something 
of the sort, with his pretty, showy London wife, who, when 
he brought her there, had looked down rather contemptu- 
ously upon the street where Tom was born. 

This was all Elizabeth knew about them. They, too, 
had passed from her life as phases of keen joy and keener 
sorrow do pass, like a dream and the shadows of a dream. 
It may be, life itself will seem at the end to be nothing 
more. 

But Elizabeth Hand’s love-story was not so to end. 

One morning, the same morning when she had been 
pointing out the lilacs to little Henry, and now came in 
from the square with a branch of them in her hand, the 
postman gave her a letter, the handwriting of which made 
her start as if it had been a visitation from the dead. 

“ Mammy Lizzie, Mammy Lizzie !” cried little Henry, 
plucking at her gown, but for once his nurse did not notice 
him. She stood on the door-step, trembling violently ; at 
length she put the letter into her pocket, lifted the child, 
and got up stairs somehow. When she had settled her 
charge to his midday sleep, then, and not till then, did she 
take out and read the few lines, which, though written on 
shabby paper, and with more than one blot, were so like — 
yet so terribly unlike — Tom’s caligraphy of old : 

“ Hear Elizabeth, — I have no right to ask any kindness 
of you ; but if you would like to see an old friend alive, I 
wish you would come and see me. I have been long of 
asking you, lest you might fancy I wanted to get some- 
thing out of you ; for I’m as poor as a rat ; and once lately 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


307 


I saw you, looking so well and well-to-do. But it was the 
same kind old face, and I should like to get one kind look 
from it before I go where I sha’n’t want any kindness from 
any body. However, do just as you choose. 

“Yours affectionately, T. Cliffe. 

“Underneath is my address.” 

It was in one of those wretched nooks in Westminster, 
now swept away by Victoria Street and other improve- 
ments. Elizabeth happened to have read about it in one 
of the many charitable pamphlets, reports, etc., which were 
sent continually to the wealthy Mr. Ascott, and which he 
sent down stairs to light fires with. What must not poor 
Tom have sunk to before he had come to live there ? His 
letter was like a cry out of the depths, and the voice was 
that of her youth, her first love. 

Is any woman ever deaf to that ? The love may have 
died a natural death: many first loves do: a riper, com- 
pleter, happier love may have come in its place ; but there 
must be something unnatural about the woman, and man 
likewise, who can ever quite forget it — the dew of their 
youth — the beauty of their dawn. 

“ Poor Tom ! poor Tom !” sighed Elizabeth ; “ my own 
poor Tom !” 

She forgot Esther, either from Tom’s not mentioning 
her, or in the strong return to old times which his letter 
produced ; forgot her for the time being as completely as 
if she had never existed. Even when the recollection came 
it made little difference. The sharp jealousy, the dislike 
and contempt, had all calmed down ; she thought she could 
now see Tom’s wife as any other woman — especially if, as 
the letter indicated, they were so very poor and miserable. 

Possibly Esther had suggested writing it? Perhaps 5 
though Tom did not, Esther did “ want to get something 
out of her” — Elizabeth Hand, who was known to have 
large wages, and to be altogether a thriving person? 
Well, it mattered little. The one fact remained: Tom was 
in distress ; Tom needed her ; she must go. 

Her only leisure time was of an evening, after Henry 


308 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


was in bed. The intervening hours, especially the last 
one, when the child was down stairs with his father, calm- 
ed her; subdued the tumult of old remembrances that 
came surging up and beating at the long-shut door of her 
heart. When her boy returned, leaping and laughing, and 
playing all sorts of tricks as she put him to bed, she could 
smile too. And when, kneeling beside her in his pretty 
white night-gown, he stammered through the prayer she 
had thought it right to begin to teach him, though of 
course he was too young to understand it, the words 
“Thy will be done;” “Forgive us our trespasses, as we 
forgive those who trespass against us;” and, lastly, “Lead 
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” struck 
home to his nurse’s inmost soul. 

“ Mammy — Mammy Lizzie’s ’tying !” 

Yes, she was crying, but it did her good. She was able 
to kiss her little boy, who slept like a top in five minutes ; 
then she took off her good silk gown, and dressed herself 
soberly and decently, but so that people should not sus- 
pect, in that low and dangerous neighborhood, the sover- 
eigns that she carried in an under-pocket, ready to use as 
occasion required. Thus equipped, she started without a 
minute’s delay for Tom’s lodging. 

It was poorer than even she expected. One attic room, 
bare almost as when it was built. No chimney or grate, 
no furniture except a box which served as both table and 
chair ; and a heap of straw, with a blanket thrown over it. 
The only comfort about it was that it was clean: Tom’s 
innate sense of refinement had abided with him to the last. 

Elizabeth had time to make all these observations, for 
Tom was out — gone, the landlady said, to the druggist’s 
shop round the corner. 

“ He’s very bad, ma’am,” added the woman, civilly, prob- 
ably led thereto by Elizabeth’s respectable appearance, and 
the cab in which she had come, lest she should lose a min- 
ute’s time. “ Can’t last long ; and Lord knows who’s to 
bury him.” 

With that sentence knelling in her ears Elizabeth wait- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


309 


ed till she heard the short cough and the hard breathing 
of some one toiling heavily up the stair. 

Tom — Tom himself. But oh ! so altered ; with every 
bit of youth gone out of him; with death written on every 
line of his haggard face, the death he had once prognosti- 
cated with a sentimental pleasure, but which now had come 
upon him in all its ghastly reality. 

He was in the last stage of consumption. The disease 
was latent in his family, Elizabeth knew : she had known 
it when she had belonged to him, and fondly thought that, 
as his wife, her incessant care might save him from it ; but 
nothing could save him now. 

“ Who’s that ?” said he, in his own sharp, fretful voice. 

“ Me, Tom. But don’t speak. Sit down till your cough’s 
over.” 

Tom grasped her hand as she stood by him, but he made 
no farther demonstration, nor used any expression of grati- 
tude. He seemed far too ill. Sick people are always ab- 
sorbed in the sad present ; they seldom trouble themselves 
much about the past. Only there was something in the 
way Tom clung to her hand, helplessly, imploringly, that 
moved the inmost heart of Elizabeth. 

“ I’m very bad, you see. This cough — oh, it shakes me 
dreadfully, especially of nights.” 

“Have you any doctor?” 

“The druggist close by, or rather the druggist’s shop- 
man. He’s a very kind young fellow, from our county, I 
fancy, for he asked me once if I wasn’t a Stowbury man ; 
and ever since he has doctored me for nothing, and given 
me a shilling too, now and then, when I’ve been a’most 
clemmed to death in the winter.” 

“Oh, Tom, why didn’t you write to me before? Have 
you actually wanted food ?” 

“ Yes, many a time. I’ve been out of work this twelve- 
month.” 

“ But Esther ?” 

“ Who ?” screamed Tom. 

“ Your wife.” 


310 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ My wife ? I’ve got none ! She spent every thing till 
I fell ill, and then she met a fellow with lots o’ money. 
Curse her !” 

The fury with which he spoke shook him all over, and 
sent him into another violent fit of coughing, out of which 
he revived by degrees, but in a state of such complete ex- 
haustion that Elizabeth hazarded no more questions. He 
must evidently be dealt with exactly like a child. 

She made up her mind in her own silent way, as indeed 
she had done ever since she came into the room. 

“ Lie down, Tom, and keep yourself quiet for a little. 
I’ll be back as soon as I can — back with something to do 
you good. You won’t object ?” 

“ No, no ; you can do any thing you like with me. You 
always could.” 

Elizabeth groped her way down stairs strangely calm 
and self-possessed. There was need. Tom, dying, had 
come to her as his sole support and consolation — thrown 
himself helplessly upon her, never doubting either her will 
or her power to help him. Neither must fail. The inex- 
plicable woman’s strength, sometimes found in the very 
gentlest, quietest, and apparently the weakest character, 
nerved her now. 

She went up and down street after street, looking for 
lodgings, till the evening darkened, and the Abbey towers 
rose grimly against the summer sky. Then she crossed 
over Westminster Bridge, and on a little street on the 
Surrey side she found what she wanted — a decent room, 
half sitting, half bedroom, with what looked like a decent 
landlady. There was no time to make many inquiries; 
any thing was better than to leave Tom another night 
w\ere he was. 

She paid a week’s rent in advance ; bought firing and 
provisions; every thing she could think of to make him 
comfortable, and then she went to fetch him in a cab. 

The sick man offered no resistance ; indeed, he hardly 
•seemed to know what she was doing with him. She dis- 
covered the cause of this half-insensibility when, in making 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


311 


a bundle of his few clothes, she found a packet labeled 
“ opium.” 

“ Don’t take it from me,” he said, pitifully. 44 It’s the 
only comfort I have.” 

But when he found himself in the cheerful room, with 
the fire blazing and the tea laid out, he woke up like a per- 
son out of a bad dream. 

44 Oh, Elizabeth, I’m so comfortable !” 

Elizabeth could have wept. 

Whether the wholesome food and drink revived him, or 
whether it was one of the sudden flashes of life that often 
occur in consumptive patients, but he seemed really better, 
and began to talk, telling Elizabeth about his long illness, 
and saying over and over again how very kind the drug- 
gist’s young man had been to him. 

“ I’m sure he’s a gentleman, though he has come down in 
the world ; for, as he says, 4 Misery makes a man acquaint- 
ed with strange bedfellows, and takes the nonsense out of 
him.’ I think so too ; and if ever I get better, I don’t mean 
to go about the country speaking against born gentlefolks 
any more. They’re much of a muchness as ourselves — bad 
and good ; a little of all sorts ; the same flesh and blood as 
we are. Aren’t they, Elizabeth ?” 

44 1 suppose so.” 

44 And there’s another thing I mean to do — I mean to 
try and be good like you. Many a night, when I’ve lain 
on that straw, and thought I was dying, I’ve remembered 
you and all the things you used to say to me. You are a 
good woman ; there never was a better.” 

Elizabeth smiled, a faint, rather sad smile ; for, as she 
was washing up the tea-things, she had noticed Tom’s voice 
grow feebler, and his features sharper and more wan. 

44 I’m very tired,” he said. 44 I’m afraid to go to bed, I 
get such wretched nights ; but I think, if I lay down in 
my clothes, I could go to sleep.” 

Elizabeth helped him to the small pallet, shook his pil- 
low, and covered him up as if he had been a child. 

44 You’re very good to me,” he said, and looked up at 


312 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


her — Tom’s bright, fond look of years ago. But it passed 
away in a moment, and he closed his eyes, saying he was 
so terribly tired. 

“ Then I’ll bid you good-by, for I ought to have been at 
home by now. You’ll take care of yourself, Tom, and I’ll 
come and see you again the very first hour I can be spared. 
And if you want me you’ll send to me at once ? You know 
where ?” 

“ I will,” said Tom. “ It’s the same house, isn’t it, in 
Russell Square ?” 

“ Yes.” And they were both silent. 

After a minute Tom asked, in a troubled voice, 

“ Have you forgiven me ?” 

“ Yes, Tom, quite.” 

“Won’t you give me one kiss, Elizabeth?” 

She turned away. She did not mean to be hard, but 
somehow she could not kiss Esther’s husband. 

“ Ah ! well, it’s all the same. Good-by !” 

“ Good-by, Tom.” 

But as she stood at the door, and looked back at him 
lying with his eyes shut, and as white as if he were dead, 
Elizabeth’s heart melted. He was her Tom, her own Tom, 
of whom she had been so fond, so proud ; whose future she 
had joyfully anticipated long before she thought of herself 
as mixed up with it ; and he was dying — dying at four- 
and-twenty ; passing away to the other world, where, per- 
haps, she might meet him yet, with no cruel Esther be- 
tween. 

“ Tom,” she said, and knelt beside him, “ Tom, I didn’t 
mean to vex you. I’ll try to be as good as a sister to you. 
I’ll never forsake you as long as you live.” 

“ I know you never will.” 

“ Good-by, then, for to-night.” 

And she did kiss him, mouth to mouth, quietly and ten- 
derly. She was so glad of it afterward. 

It was late enough when she reached Russell Square; 
but nobody ever questioned the proceedings of Mrs. Hand, 
who was a privileged person. She crept in beside her lit- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


313 


tie Henry, and as the child turned in his sleep and put his 
arms about her neck, she clasped him tight, and thought 
there was still something to live for in this weary world. 

All night she thought over what best could be done for 
Tom. Though she never deceived herself for a moment as 
to his state, still she thought, with care and proper nurs- 
ing, he might live a few months, especially if she could get 
him into the Consumption Hospital, newly started in Chel- 
sea, of which she was aware Mr. Ascott — who dearly liked 
to see his name in a charity-list — was one of the governors. 

There was no time to be lost ; she determined to speak 
to her master at once. 

The time she chose was when she brought down little 
Henry, who was now always expected to appear, and say, 
“ Dood morning, papa,” before Mr. Ascott went into the 
city. 

As they stood, the boy laughing in his father’s face, and 
the father beaming all over with delight, the bitter, almost 
fierce thought smote Elizabeth, Why should Peter Ascott 
be standing there fat and flourishing, and poor Tom dying ? 
It made her bold to ask the only favor she ever had asked 
of the master whom she did not care for, and to whom she 
had done her duty simply as duty, without, until lately, 
one fragment of respect. 

“ Sir, if you please, might I speak with you a minute be- 
fore you go out ?” 

“ Certainly, Mrs. Hand. Any thing about Master Hen- 
ry ? Or perhaps yourself? You want more wages? Very 
well. I shall be glad, in any reasonable way, to show my 
satisfaction at the manner in which you bring up my son.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” said Elizabeth, courtesying. “ But it 
is not that.” 

And in the briefest language she could find she explained 
what it was. 

Mr. Ascott knitted his brows and looked important. He 
never scattered his benefits with a silent hand, and he dear- 
ly liked to create difficulties, if only to show how he could 
smooth them down. 


314 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ To get a patient admitted at the Consumptive Hospital 
is, you should be aware, no easy matter, until the building 
at Queen’s Elm is complete. But I flatter myself I have 
influence. I have subscribed a deal of money. Possibly 
the person may be got in in time. Who did you say he 
was ?” 

“ Thomas Clifle. He married one of the servants here, 
Esther — ” 

“ Oh, don’t trouble yourself about the name ; I shouldn’t 
recollect it. The housekeeper might. Why didn’t his wife 
apply to the housekeeper?” 

The careless question seemed hardly to expect an an- 
swer, and Elizabeth gave none. She could not bear to 
make public Tom’s misery and Esther’s shame. 

“ And you say he is a Stowbury man ? That is certain- 
ly a claim. I always feel bound, somewhat as a member 
of Parliament might be, to do my best for any one belong- 
ing to my native town. So be satisfied, Mrs. Hand ; con- 
sider the thing settled.” 

And he was going away ; but time being of such great 
moment, Elizabeth ventured to detain him till he had writ- 
ten the letter of recommendation, and found out what days 
the application for admittance could be received. He did 
it very patiently, and even took out his purse and laid a 
sovereign on the top of the letter. 

“ I suppose the man is poor ; you can use this for his 
benefit.” 

“ There is no need, thank you, sir,” said Elizabeth, put- 
ting it gently aside. She could not bear that Tom should 
accept any body’s money but her own. 

At her first spare moment she wrote him a long letter 
explaining what she had done, and appointing the next day 
but one, the earliest possible, for taking him out to Chelsea 
herself If he objected to the plan he was to write and 
say so ; but she urged him as strongly as she could not to 
let slip this opportunity of obtaining good nursing and first- 
rate medical care. 

Many times during the day the thought of Tom alone 


MISTRESS AND MAID* 


Sid 


in his one room — comfortable though it was, and though 
she had begged the landlady to see that he wanted noth- 
ing — came across her with a sudden pang. His face, fee- 
bly lifted up from the pillow, with its last affectionate 
smile, the sound of his cough as she stood listening outside 
on the stair-head, haunted her all through that sunshiny 
June day; and mingled with it came ghostly visions of 
that other day in June — her happy Whitsun holiday — her 
first and her last. 

No letter coming from Tom on the appointed morning, 
she left Master Harry in the charge of the house-maid, who 
was very fond of him — as indeed he bade fair to be spoiled 
by the whole establishment at Russell Square — and went 
down to Westminster. 

There was a long day before her, so she took a minute’s 
breathing space on Westminster Bridge, and watched the 
great current of London life ebbing and flowing — life on 
the river and life on the shore ; every body so busy, and 
active, and bright. 

“ Poor Tom ! poor Tom !” she sighed, and wondered 
whether his ruined life would ever come to any happy end- 
ing except death. 

She hurried on, and soon found the street where she had 
taken his lodging. At the corner of it was, as is too usual 
in London streets, a public house, about which more than 
the usual number of disreputable idlers were hanging. 
There were also one or two policemen, who were ordering 
the little crowd to give way to a group of twelve men, 
coming out. 

“What is that?” asked Elizabeth. 

“ Coroner’s inquest ; jury proceeding to view the body.” 

Elizabeth, who had never come into contact with any 
thing of the sort, stood aside with a sense of awe, to let 
the little procession pass, and then followed it up the 
street. 

It stopped — oh no ! not at that door ! But it was ; there 
was no mistaking the number, nor the drawn-down blind 
in the upper room — Tom’s room. 


316 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


“ Who is dead ?” she asked, in a whisper that made the 
policeman stare. 

“Oh ! nobody particular; a young man, found dead in 
his bed ; supposed to be a case of consumption ; verdict 
will probably be, ‘ Died by the visitation of God.’ ” 

Ay, that familiar phrase, our English law’s solemn recog- 
nition of our national religious feeling, was true here. God 
had “ visited” poor Tom ; he suffered no more. 

Elizabeth leaned against the doorway, and saw the 
twelve jurymen go up stairs with a clatter of feet, and 
come down again, one after the other, less noiselessly, and 
some of them looking grave. Nobody took any notice of 
her until the lodging-house mistress appeared. 

“ Oh, here she is, gentlemen. This is the young woman 
as saw him last alive. She’ll give her evidence. She’ll tell 
you I’m not a bit to blame.” 

And, pulling Elizabeth after her, the landlady burst into 
a torrent of explanation — how she had done her very best 
for the poor fellow; how she had listened at his door sev- 
eral times during the first day, and heard him cough, that 
is, she thought she had, but toward night all was so very 
quiet ; and there having come a letter by post, she thought 
she would take it up to him. 

“ And I went in, gentlemen, and I declare, upon my oath, 
I found him lying just as he is now, and as cold as a stone.” 

“ Let me pass ; I’m a doctor,” said somebody behind ; a 
young man, very shabbily dressed, with a large beard. He 
pushed aside the landlady and Elizabeth till he saw the 
latter’s face. 

“ Give that young woman a chair and a glass of water, 
will you ?” he called out ; and his authoritative manner im- 
pressed the jurymen, who gathered round him, ready and 
eager to hear any thing he could say. 

He gave his name as John Smith, druggist’s assistant; 
said that the young man who lodged up stairs, whose death 
he had only just heard of, had been his patient for some 
months, and was in the last stage of consumption. He 
had no doubt the death had ensued from perfectly natural 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


317 


causes, as he explained in such technical language as com- 
pletely to overpower the jury, and satisfy them according- 
ly. They quitted the parlor, and proceeded to the public 
house, where, after a brief consultation, they delivered their 
verdict, as the astute policeman had foretold, “Died by the 
visitation of God took pipes and brandy all round at the 
bar, and then adjourned to their several homes, gratified at 
having done their duty to their country. 

Meantime Elizabeth crept up stairs. Nobody hindered 
or followed her; nobody cared any thing for the solitary 
dead. 

There he lay — poor Tom ! — almost as she had left him ; 
the counterpane was hardly disturbed, the candle she had 
placed on the chair had burned down to a bit of wick, 
which still lay in the socket. Nobody had touched him, 
or any thing about him, as, in all cases of “Found dead,” 
English law exacts. 

Whether he had died soon after she quitted him that 
night, or whether he had lingered through the long hours 
of darkness, or of daylight following, alive and conscious 
perhaps, yet too weak to call any one, even had there been 
any one he cared to call — when or how the spirit had 
passed away unto Him who gave it were mysteries that 
could never be known. 

But it was all over now ; he lay at rest with the death 
smile on his face. Elizabeth, as she stood and looked at 
him, could not, dared not weep. 

“ My poor Tom, my own dear Tom,” was all she thought, 
and knew that he was all her own now ; that she had loved 
him through every thing, and loved him to the end. 


CHAPTER XXYin. 

Elizabeth spent the greatest part of her holiday in that 
house, in that room. Nobody interfered with her; nobody 
asked in what relation she stood to the deceased, or what 
right she had to take upon herself the arrangements for his 


318 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


funeral. Every body was only too glad to let her assume 
a responsibility which would otherwise have fallen on the 
parish. 

The only person who appeared to remember either her 
or the dead man was the druggist’s assistant, who sent in 
the necessary medical certificate as to the cause of death. 
Elizabeth took it to the Registrar, and thence proceeded 
to an undertaker hard by, with whom she arranged all 
about the funeral, and that it should take place in the new 
cemetery at Kensal Green. She thought she should like 
that better than a close, noisy London church-yard. 

Before she left the house she saw poor Tom laid in his 
coffin, and covered up forever from mortal eyes. Then, and 
not till then, she sat herself down beside him and wept. 

Nobody contested with her the possession of the few 
things that had belonged to him, which were scarcely more 
than the clothes he had on when he died; so she made 
them up into a parcel and took them away with her. In 
his waistcoat pocket she found one book, a little Testament, 
which she had given him herself. It looked as if it had 
been a good deal read. If all his studies, all his worship 
of “ pure intellect,” as the one supreme good, had ended in 
that, it was a blessed ending. 

When she reached home Elizabeth went at once to her 
master, returned him his letter of recommendation, and ex- 
plained to him that his kindness was not needed now. 

Mr. Ascott seemed a good deal shocked, inquired from 
her a few particulars, and again took out his purse, his one 
panacea for all mortal woes. But Elizabeth declined ; she 
said she would only ask him for an advance of her next 
half-year’s wages. She preferred burying her old friend 
herself. 

She buried him, herself the only mourner, on a bright 
summer’s day, with the sun shining dazzlingly on the white 
grave-stones in Kensal Green. The clergyman appeared, 
read the service, and went away again. A few minutes 
ended it all. When the undertaker and his men had also 
departed she sat down on a bench near to watch the sex- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


319 


ton filling up the grave — Tom’s grave. She was very quiet, 
and none but a closely-observant person watching her face 
could have penetrated into the truth of what your impul- 
sive characters, always in the extremes of mirth or misery, 
never understand about quiet people, that “ still waters run 
deep.” 

While she sat there some one came past her and turned 
round. It was the shabby-looking chemist’s assistant, who 
had appeared at the inquest and given the satisfactory ev- 
idence which had prevented the necessity of her giving 
hers. 

Elizabeth rose and acknowledged him with a respectful 
courtesy ; for under his threadbare clothes was the bearing 
of a gentleman, and he had been so kind to Tom. 

“ I am too late,” he said ; “ the funeral is over. I meant 
to have attended it, and seen the last of the poor fellow.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” replied Elizabeth, gratefully. 

The young man stood before her, looking at her earnest- 
ly for a minute or two, and then exclaimed, with a com- 
plete change of voice and manner, “ Elizabeth ! don’t you 
know me? What has become of my Aunt Johanna?” 

It was Ascott Leaf. 

But no wonder Elizabeth had not recognized him. His 
close-cropped hair, his large beard hiding half his face, and 
a pair of spectacles which he had assumed, were a suffi- 
cient disguise. Besides, the great change from his former 
“dandy” appearance to the extreme of shabbiness — his 
clothes being evidently worn as long as they could possibly 
hold together, and his generally depressed air giving the 
effect of one who had gone down in the world — made him, 
even without the misleading “John Smith,” most unlikely 
to be identified with the Ascott Leaf of old. 

“ I never should have known you, sir !” said Elizabeth, 
truthfully, when her astonishment had a little subsided ; 
“ but I am very glad to see you. Oh, how thankful your 
aunts will be !” 

“ Do you think so ? I thought it was quite the contrary. 
But it does not matter; they will never hear of me, unless 


320 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


you tell them — and I believe I may trust you. You would 
not betray me, if only for the sake of that poor fellow yon- 
der?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“Now tell me something about my aunts, especially my 
Aunt Johanna.” 

And sitting down in the sunshine, with his arm upon the 
back of the bench, and his hand hiding his eyes, the poor 
prodigal listened in silence to every thing Elizabeth told 
him ; of his Aunt Selina’s marriage and death, and of Mr. 
Lyon’s return, and of the happy home at Liverpool. 

“ They are all quite happy, then ?” said he, at length ; 
“ they seem to have begun to prosper ever since they got 
rid of me. Well, I’m glad of it. I only wanted to hear 
of them from you. I shall never trouble them any more. 
You’ll keep my secret, I know. And now I must go, for I 
have not a minute more to spare. Good-by, Elizabeth.” 

With a humility and friendliness, strange enough in As- 
cott Leaf, he held out his hand — empty, for he had nothing 
to give now — to his aunt’s old servant. But Elizabeth de- 
tained him. 

“Don’t go, sir; please don’t — not just yet.” And then 
she added, with an earnest respectfulness that touched the 
heart of the poor, shabby man, “ I hope you’ll pardon the 
liberty I take. I’m only a servant, but I knew you when 
you were a boy, Mr. Leaf; and if you would trust me — if 
you would let me be of use to you in any way — if only be- 
cause you were so good to him there.” 

“ Poor Tom Cliffe ; he was not a bad fellow ; he liked me 
rather, I think ; and I was able to doctor him, and help him 
a little. Heigh-ho ; it’s a comfort to think I ever did any 
good to any body.” 

Ascott sighed, drew his rusty coat-sleeve across his eyes, 
and sat contemplating his boots, which were any thing but 
dandy boots now. 

“ Elizabeth, what relation was Tom to you ? If I had 
known you were acquainted with him I should have been 
afraid to go near him ; but I felt sure, though he came from 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


321 


Stowbury, he did not guess who I was ; he only knew me 
as Mr. Smith ; and he never once mentioned you. Was he 
your cousin, or what ?” 

Elizabeth considered a moment, and then told the simple 
fact ; it could not matter now. 

“I was once going to be married to him, but he saw 
somebody he liked better, and married her.” 

“ Poor girl ! poor Elizabeth !” 

Perhaps nothing could have shown the great change in 
Ascott more than the tone in which he uttered these words ; 
a tone of entire respect and kindly pity, from which he 
never once departed during that conversation, and many, 
many others, so long as their confidential relations lasted. 

“Now, sir, would you be so kind as to tell me something 
about yourself? I’ll not repeat any thing to your aunts, 
if you don’t wish it.” 

Ascott yielded. He had been so long, so utterly forlorn. 
He sat down beside Elizabeth, and then, with eyes often 
averted, and with many breaks between, which she had to 
fill up as best she could, he told her all his story, even to 
the sad secret of all, which had caused him to run away 
from home, and hide himself in the last place where they 
would have thought he was, the safe wilderness of London. 
There, carefully disguised, he had lived decently while his 
money lasted, and then, driven step by step to the brink 
of destitution, he had offered himself for employment in the 
lowest grade of his own profession, and been taken as as- 
sistant by the not overscrupulous chemist and druggist in 
that not too respectable neighborhood of Westminster, with 
a salary of twenty pounds a year. 

“And I actually live upon it!” added he, with a bitter 
smile. “I can’t run into debt; for who would trust me? 
And I dress in rags almost, as you see. And I get my 
meals how and where I can ; and I sleep under the shop- 
counter. A pretty life for Mr. Ascott Leaf, isn’t it, now ? 
What would my aunts say if they knew it ?” 

“They would say it was an honest life, and that they 
were not a bit ashamed of you.” 


322 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


Ascott drew himself up a little, and his chest heaved vis- 
ibly under the close-buttoned, threadbare coat. 

“Well, at least it is a life that makes nobody else mis- 
erable.” 

Ay, that wonderful teacher, Adversity, 

“Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

Wears yet a precious jewel in its head,” 

had left behind this jewel in the young man’s heart. A 
disguised, beggared outcast, he had found out the value of 
an honest name ; forsaken, unfriended, he had learned the 
preciousness of home and love ; made a servant of, tyran- 
nized over, and held in low esteem, he had been taught by 
hard experience the secret of true humility and charity — 
the esteeming of others better than himself. 

Not with all natures does misfortune so work, but it did 
with his. He had sinned ; he had paid the cost of his sin 
in bitter suffering; but the result was cheaply bought, and 
he already began to feel that it was so. 

“Yes,” said he, in answer to a question of Elizabeth’s, 
“ I really am, for some things, happier than I used to be* I 
feel more like what I was in the old days, when I was a lit- 
tle chap at Stowbury. Poor old Stowbury ! I often think 
of the place in a way that’s perfectly ridiculous. Still, if 
any thing happened to me, I should like my aunts to know 
it, and that I didn’t forget them.” 

“ But, sir,” asked Elizabeth, earnestly, “ do you never 
mean to go near your aunts again ?” 

“ I can’t say ; it all depends upon circumstances. I sup- 
pose,” he added, “ if, as is said, one’s sin is sure to find one 
out, the same rule goes by contraries. It seems poor Cliffe 
once spoke of me to a district visitor, the only visitor he 
ever had ; and this gentleman, hearing of the inquest, came 
yesterday to inquire about him of me ; and the end was 
that he offered me a situation with a person he knew, a 
very respectable chemist in Tottenham Court Road.” 

“And shall you go?” 

“ To be sure. I’ve learned to be thankful for small mer- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


323 


cies. Nobody will find me out or recognize me. You 
didn’t. Who knows ? I may even have the honor of dis 
pensing drugs to Uncle Ascott of Russell Square.” 

“ But,” said Elizabeth, after a pause, “ you will not al- 
ways remain as John Smith, druggist’s shopman, throwing 
away all your good education, and position, and name ?” 

“Elizabeth,” said he, in a humbled tone, “how dare I 
ever resume my own name and get back my rightful posi- 
tion while Peter Ascott lives ? Can you or any body point 
out a way?” 

She thought the question over in her clear head ; clear 
still, even at this hour, when she had to think for others, 
though all personal feeling and interest were buried in that 
grave over which the sexton was now laying the turf that 
would soon grow smoothly green. 

“ If I might advise, Mr. Leaf, I should say, save up all 
your money, and then go, just as you are, with an honest, 
bold front, right into my master’s house, with the fifty 
pounds in your hand — ” 

“ By Jove, you’ve hit it !” cried Ascott, starting up. 
“What a thing a woman’s head is! I’ve turned over 
scheme after scheme, but 1 never once thought of any so 
simple as that. Bravo, Elizabeth ! You’re a remarkable 
, woman.’ 1 

She smiled — a very sad smile — but still she felt glad. 
Any thing that she could possibly do for any creature be- 
longing to her dear mistresses seemed to this faithful serv- 
ant the natural and bounden duty of her life. 

Long after the young man, whose mercurial temperament 
no trouble could repress, had gone away in excellent spirits, 
leaving her an address where she could always find him, 
and give him regular news of his aunts, though he made 
her promise to give them, as yet, no tidings in return, Eliz- 
abeth sat still, watching the sun decline and the shadows 
lengthen over the field of graves. In the calmness and 
beauty of this solitary place an equal calm seemed to come 
over her; a sense of how wonderfully events had linked 
themselves together and worked themselves out ; how even 


324 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


poor Tom’s mournful death had brought about this meet- 
ing, which might end in restoring to her beloved mistresses 
their lost sheep, their outcast, miserable boy. She did not 
reason the matter out, but she felt it, and felt that in mak- 
ing her in some degree his instrument God had been very 
good to her in the midst of her desolation. 

It seemed Elizabeth’s lot always to have to put aside 
her own troubles for the trouble of somebody else. Al- 
most immediately after Tom Cliffe’s death her little Henry 
fell ill with scarlatina, and remained for many months in 
a state of health so fragile as to engross all her thought 
and care. It was with difficulty that she contrived a few 
times to go for Henry’s medicines to the shop where “ John 
Smith” served. 

She noticed that every time he looked healthier, bright- 
er, freer from that aspect of broken-down respectability 
which had touched her so much. He did not dress any 
better, but still “ the gentleman” in him could never be 
hidden or lost, and he said his master treated him “ like a 
gentleman,” which was apparently a pleasant novelty. 

“ I have some time to myself also. Shop shuts at nine, 
and I get up at 5 A.M. — bless us ! what would my aunt Hi- 
lary say ! And it’s not for nothing. There are more ways 
than one of turning an honest penny, when a young fellow 
really sets about it. Elizabeth, you used to be a literary 
character yourself ; look into the and the ” (nam- 

ing two popular magazines), “ and if you find a series of 
especially clever papers on sanitary reform, and so on, I 
did ’em !” 

He slapped his chest with Ascott’s merry laugh of old. 
It cheered Elizabeth for a long while afterward. 

By-and-by she had to take little Henry to Brighton, and 
lost sight of “ J ohn Smith” for some time longer. 

It was on a snowy February day, when, having brought 
the child home quite strong, and received unlimited grati- 
tude and guineas from the delighted father, Master Henry’s 
faithful nurse stood in her usual place at the dining-room 
door, waiting for the interminable grace of “ only five min- 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


325 


utes more” to be over, and her boy carried ignominiously 
but contentedly to bed. 

The footman knocked at the door. “ A young man want- 
ing to speak to master on particular business.” 

“ Let him send in his name.” 

“ He says you wouldn’t know it, sir.” 

“ Show him in, then. Probably a case of charity, as usu- 
al. Oh !” 

And Mr. Ascott’s opinion was confirmed by the appear- 
ance of the shabby young man with the long beard, whom 
Elizabeth did not wonder he never recognized in the least. 

She ought to have retired, and yet she could not. She 
hid herself partly behind the door, afraid of passing As- 
cott, dreading alike to wound him by recognition or non- 
recognition. But he took no notice. He seemed excessive- 
ly agitated. 

“ Come a-begging, young man, I suppose ? Wants a situ- 
ation, as hundreds do, and think that I have half the clerk- 
ships in the city at my disposal, and that I am made of 
money besides. But it’s no good, I tell you, sir ; I never 
give nothing to strangers, except — Here, Henry, my son, 
take that person there this half crown.” 

And the little boy, in his pretty purple velvet frock and 
his prettier face, trotted across the room and put the mon- 
ey into poor Ascott’s hand. He took it ; and then, to the 
astonishment of Master Henry, and the still greater aston- 
ishment of his father, lifted up the child and kissed him. 

“ Young man, young fellow — ” 

“I see you don’t know me, Mr. Ascott, and it’s not sur- 
prising. But I have come to repay you this — ” he laid a 
fifty-pound note down on the table. “ Also, to thank you 
earnestly for not prosecuting me, and to say — ” 

“ Good God !” — the sole expletive Peter Ascott had 
been heard to use for long — “ Ascott Leaf, is that you ? I 
thought you were in Australia, or dead, or something.” 

“No, Pm alive and here, more’s the pity perhaps, except 
that I have lived to pay you back what I cheated you out 
of. What you generously gave me I can’t pay, though I 


326 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


may some time. Meantime I have brought you this. It’s 
honestly earned. Yes” — observing the keen doubtful look 
— “ though I have hardly a coat to my back, I assure you 
it’s honestly earned.” 

Mr. Ascott made no reply. He stooped over the bank- 
note, examined it, folded it, and put it into his pocket-book ; 
then, after another puzzled investigation of Ascott, cleared 
his throat. 

“Mrs. Hand, you had better take Master Henry up stairs.” 

An hour after, when little Henry had long been sound 
asleep, and she was sitting at her usual evening sewing in 
her solitary nursery, Elizabeth learned that the “ shabby 
young man” was still in the dining-room with Mr. Ascott, 
who had rung for tea and some cold meat with it. And 
the footman stated, with undisguised amazement, that the 
shabby young man was actually sitting at the same table 
with master! 

Elizabeth smiled to herself, and held her tongue. Now, 
as ever, she always kept the secrets of the family. 

About ten o’clock she was summoned to the dining-room. 

There stood Peter Ascott, pompous as ever, but with a 
certain kindly good-humor lightening his heavy face, look- 
ing condescendingly around him, and occasionally rubbing 
his hands slowly together, as if he were exceedingly well 
pleased with himself. There stood Ascott Leaf, looking 
bright and handsome in spite of his shabbiness, and quite 
at his ease — which small peculiarity was never likely to 
be knocked out of him under the most depressing circum- 
stances. 

He shook hands with Elizabeth warmly. 

“ I wanted to ask you if you have any message for Liv- 
erpool. I go there to-morrow on business for Mr. Ascott, 
and afterward I shall probably go and see my aunts.” He 
faltered a moment, but quickly shook the emotion off. “ Of 
course I shall tell them all about you, Elizabeth. Any 
special message, eh ?” 

“Only ray duty, sir, and Master Henry is quite well 
again,” said Elizabeth, formally, and dropping her old-fash- 


MISTRESS ANb MAlb. 32? 

ioned courtesy ; after which, as quickly as she could, she 
slipped out of the dining-room. 

But long, long after, when all the house was gone to bed, 
she stood at the nursery window, looking down upon the 
trees of the square, that stretched their motionless arms up 
into the moonlight sky — just such a moonlight as it was 
once, more than three years ago, the night little Henry was 
born. And she recalled all the past, from the day when 
Miss Hilary hung up her bonnet for her in the house-place 
at Stowbury ; the dreary life at No. 15 ; the Sunday nights 
when she and Tom Cliffe used to go wandering round and 
round the square. 

“ Poor Tom !” said she to herself, thinking of Ascott Leaf, 
and how happy he had looked, and how happy his aunts 
would be to-morrow. “Well, Tom would be glad too if 
he knew all.” 

But, happy as every body was, there was nothing so close 
to Elizabeth’s heart as the one grave over which the snow 
was now lying, white and peaceful, out at Kensal Green. 

Elizabeth is still living— which is a great blessing, for 
nobody could well do without her. She will probably 
attain a good old age, being healthy and strong, very equa- 
ble in temper now, and very cheerful too, in her quiet way. 
Doubtless she will yet have Master Henry’s children climb- 
ing her knees, and calling her “ Mammy Lizzie.” 

But she will never marry. She never loved any body 
but Tom. 


THE END. 























































































































































































































































































































































































































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